


Adrift

by bcbdrums



Category: Kim Possible (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Feels, Beaches, Being Lost, Bittersweet Ending, Boats and Ships, Developing Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Fire, Hair Braiding, Holding Hands, Hopeful Ending, Kissing, Light Angst, Literal Sleeping Together, Ocean, Platonic Cuddling, Rescue, Sharks, Stargazing, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24739468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bcbdrums/pseuds/bcbdrums
Summary: "Drakken..."His nervous, worried eyes met hers."Why did you want to kiss me?"He pinched his eyes shut and his next breath sounded in a hiss."Shego... Please, just...pretend it never happened."
Relationships: Dr. Drakken & Shego (Kim Possible), Dr. Drakken/Shego (Kim Possible)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gofordrakgo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gofordrakgo/gifts).



> A/N: Happy birthday [GoGo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gofordrakgo/pseuds/gofordrakgo)! I'm so sorry it's so late; I didn't know it was your birthday and then it was also my mom's birthday the same day, so. I hope you had a great birthday and I hope you enjoy this humble offering! This got very long, like all my fics... And I wrote it pretty frantically to get it done fast, so I'm afraid it's not great... Ah well. I give you, a Drakgo AU story!

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"Drakken?"

The blue man lifted his chin to peer at her in the sweltering darkness.

"I'm over this."

Drakken started in fear and reached for both of her shoulders. The protective covering of his lab coat started to slip from where it covered both of their heads and upper bodies, and Shego steadied it as he leaned into her face.

"No! No, now Shego...we agreed... No more talking like that."

Shego was long-past cringing at his fishy breath, knowing hers was exactly the same. In any case, it was hard to discern considering the scent was constantly mixing with the smell of their sweat as they hid from the sun's heat beneath his lab coat.

"There's nothing out there. I don't even think I'm seeing straight anymore. And look at us," she said, her gaze drifting over his gaunt frame and then to her own.

"But..." Drakken protested in fright, shifting nearer to her. The heat increased for his closeness. "We agreed that we have a reason to live."

Shego's gaze darted away to the black inner-lining of his coat. They had agreed. Thirty-four days ago. But the torment had begun seventy-two days prior, if the tally marks she scratched into the side of the boat every night were accurate.

It had started in the most unthinkable of ways. They had taken a small fishing boat with a motor as opposed to the hover-car out a short ways from the lair so Drakken could salvage part of a laser that had sunk just offshore in the latest explosion courtesy of Kim Possible. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas. Before long their motor was broken, their anchor rope snapped, and they were adrift in the Atlantic with no supplies and no way to get back.

There had been lots of screaming and arguing at first. But it all fell to the wayside as they realized that islands and other landmasses were becoming few and far between, and they hadn't seen any other passing sea vessels. Drakken successfully repaired the motor in three days' time, with quite the quantity of literal blood, sweat, and tears. But by that time they were so far away, that the fuel ran out before they could get anywhere.

A few more days of no food, no water, and nearing heatstroke had driven them to shelter under Drakken's lab coat during the daytime for protection from the sun. Shego used her powers to kill any passing fish, turtles, or sea birds they encountered for food. They had argued and complained together about the questionable meat. They argued over whose fault it was that they were lost at sea. But ten days into the ordeal they began trying to devise a way to signal should any boats or planes come by. Save for Shego's glow, they had nothing.

What was worse was, on the few occasions they did sight ships and Shego did everything in her power to get them to notice, no one ever did. Their boat was too small, and her glow nothing but another glint of light on the vast seas.

Ten days turned into twenty, and by then they had worked out a system. Catch food as early in the day as possible, and then hide from the sun under the lab coat. Those first days had been spent in silence, the alternative being arguing still about blame and possible disease from eating the strange meats, even if it was "cooked" with Shego's glow. The arguments they did have always ended quickly, with the sad impossibility of their situation.

Eventually they began having real conversations. Shego learned from Drakken the sad tale of how he got his scar, and why his skin turned blue (all on one fateful Tuesday). For once, Shego's mocking was slight as he explained in greater detail his long-desired choice to enter into villainy and how a series of incidents in college had been his breaking point. Shego had likewise finally given in and told Drakken about what really happened after the comet had struck, and how five ordinary children became the pet project and propaganda machine of Global Justice. Drakken had commented that her eventual fall into villainy seemed more like a mental health issue than a true desire to do evil. She had blasted him out of the boat, and he had to take back the comment before she would let him out of the salty waters and return to safety.

Talking was all they could do to stay sane during the heat of the days, and so they talked. They frequently fought over the reasons for failed world domination plans, and while his argument was always that she didn't do enough, she increased the intensity of her digs at him until she insulted him to the core of his being. She dragged his intelligence, his common sense, his skills, and his supposedly-evil motivations. At thirty days into their isolation he had given up talking to her, and the only conversation he dared engage in after that was what was relevant to survival.

After five days of his sullen silence, Shego's focus began to shift. She was still intent on survival and searching for passing ships or sights of land, but she also began worrying for Drakken. He had never been in a sulk for so many days before. And even then, she was usually able to goad him into an argument and distract him onto something else. But not so after her anger over their situation had come out in every hateful thing she could think to say.

Not even apologizing got him to look at her with anything but sadness and contempt. And so she worried. When the first rain fell and they shared in a joyful soaking and drinking as much of the freshwater as they possibly could, his relief was only for the small renewed hope in their circumstance. He still gave her the cold shoulder, and seemed set on doing so apparently forever.

It was that behavior that had sent Shego into her own depression. On their fortieth day, according to the tally marks she kept with her dulling claws, she had begun to question the purpose of trying to survive. They were clearly adrift far from any land or any normal ship crossings. They had both lost weight and muscle mass and were starting to look like shadows of themselves.

Wouldn't it be easier to just give up?

Her suggestion that day had snapped Drakken out of the place he had retreated to in his mind. He slowly began arguing all of the reasons she had to live, until he was almost desperate. Her intelligence, her strength, the fact that she had family who cared for her even if she didn't care for them, and that even if he couldn't, he didn't doubt that she could take over the world someday if it was what she wanted.

She said that the hope of possibly ruling the world wasn't enough to continue in hopelessness. And then he had shocked her by holding her hand and crying, very nearly7 begging her not to give up. She slapped him for crying out any of the precious liquids they could scarcely get, their primary source of water being turtle blood since it had only rained the once. He looked at her bitterly and said that if she was choosing death, he had nothing to live for either.

That was their forty-fifth day at sea. She couldn't forget it. Because when she asked him why, he looked at her with a sadness and a shame she couldn't imagine the fiercely proud villain ever revealing to anyone. And then he told her he loved her.

She had allowed him to cry after that and to continue holding her hand, as they sat in silence huddled under his lab coat until the sun went down. Then they continued to sit in silence in the dark of the night, that revealed the arced curve of clouds that was the Milky Way. She had never seen so many stars as she had on those nights when they were lost, far from the light pollution of humankind. She had never wanted to see stars, since they were a reminder of what had happened to her and her brothers. But they had looked different that night.

The stars were less menacing, and more like the landscape of a world unknown. And that was the place that Drakken's sad declaration had sent her. The poor, blue man was in love with her. And she had said every possible hurtful thing to him over the past month save questioning his manhood. She felt guilty; a very, very rare feeling for her.

She apologized again sometime in the middle of the night, closer to the next morning, and he finally looked at her again with something other than contempt. He still looked scared for her earlier defeatist talk, and perhaps hopeful. She told him that maybe it was too soon to give up. He had nodded insistently and made her agree, they wouldn't even think about such a thing again. They were faring well all things considered, and surely, either someone would pass by or they would sight land.

He didn't bring up his declaration of feelings toward her, and neither did she.

That had been the forty-sixth day. And her agreement was based on the secret she kept from him as she began wondering, could she ever have feelings for her boss as he did for her?

The days continued to pass as they had before, with conversations about the past since it was easier than the odd tension that had been created between them. Conversations about childhood, about hopes for ruling the world, and about the deep issues of life took place as fifty days turned into sixty. Drakken relaxed around her, and she around him. They didn't talk about what he had said, and their interactions almost returned to the normal they had had before being lost.

No ships passed. No land was in sight. And it didn't rain again. But on night sixty-eight, as the Milky Way's passing above indicated the rotation of the Earth, Shego was unable to sleep. The feeling of helplessness and hopelessness hadn't ever really left. She realized it had been growing stronger, and she had just been ignoring it. Especially in light of a new feeling that she couldn't quite put a name to... She didn't want Drakken to die. And she knew that if she gave up, so would he. So she was going on for his sake. But there wasn't really anything else to the feeling.

Perhaps it was some old forgotten desire to protect the innocent that was resurfacing. But as the hopelessness settled to a crushing weight that night, she impulsively decided to test if there was anything deeper behind the new, nameless feeling. She had risen from her curled position in the boat's bow, the shifting of the vessel startling Drakken from sleep; neither of them slept deeply anymore.

He called her name in question, his head lifting from where he lay stretched out in the stern. She didn't respond but to crawl across the boat to lay next to him, setting her head against his shoulder. He was tense for almost a full minute before he relaxed, and his hand felt for hers in the dark. She held his hand back that time.

That was how they spent the next three nights, with her wordlessly moving to be by his side as they slept, his only acknowledgement the holding of her hand. The days were the same. Though she did think she noticed more light in his eyes than had been there before.

But for her part, she gained no clarity about the new feeling. All she knew for sure were the growing hopelessness and helplessness that she had promised not to feel. She was sorry. She was sorry she didn't feel the way he did, and she was sorry to break their agreement. She still wanted to give up. But she supposed by that point, honesty was the best course.

"I'm sorry..." she said, not able to bring her gaze to meet his. "It just doesn't seem worth it... What's the point of life anyway, Dr. D.? We're born, we live...some of us with better circumstances than others...and then we die. If all of life is just...distracting ourselves until death, then what's the point?"

She finally looked up to meet his shocked and scared eyes.

"That's...not possible," he said, shaking his head in the dark.

Shego watched a bead of sweat drip down the side of his face and fall into his salt-and-pepper beard.

"Why not?" she said flatly.

"Because...then we wouldn't care about anything. We wouldn't care about creating, and discovering, and...about each other."

His thumbs turned circles on her shoulders, and she looked down to one of them. She took a deep breath.

"Dr. D., I... I'm sorry. I don't love you. But that doesn't—"

"I know," he interrupted quickly, letting go with one hand. "I never expected you to." His chin had dropped again and she looked on in confusion as he spoke with a surprisingly measured tone. "I know someone like you would never choose someone like me, but...I hoped you would realize that there is more to life. Surviving is worth it. It's worth it for me, as long as you...as long as you survive too."

Shego looked down. "Are you saying you would give up, if I do?"

He blinked several times and then looked away. "I'm not sure."

Shego felt something then. It was a twinge of pain in her chest that she wasn't familiar with. She found herself frowning in response to it.

"I'm going to get some food," she declared suddenly. She lifted the edge of the lab coat and waited for her eyes to begin adjusting as she stared at the shine of the sun on the gray waters.

Drakken scooted away from her and held the coat up as their eyes adjusted to the blinding light. And then Shego dipped her bare feet and legs into the sea water. They had foregone wearing their typical attire due to the heat unless it got cold at night, and they both wore only tank tops and underwear. Shego was grateful she'd been wearing full-coverage black briefs the day they had been lost.

She slipped beneath the water's surface and opened her eyes in the stinging salt water. A school of silvery fish were swimming nearby, and she calculated her aim while holding onto the boat with one hand. A single green blast sent a large fish floating dead to the surface. She swam for it quickly before the current could take it down or away, and soon she had the slippery large morsel in her grasp.

A loud sound from above caught her attention, and she thought it sounded like Drakken shouting. As she turned around beneath the waves she very nearly gasped as she understood why. A massive shark was swimming between her and the small boat. It seemed to be watching her as it swam slowly past the boat, and then turned around to block her path again. Shego swam to the surface for air.

"Shego! There's a shark!" Drakken was shouting the second her head broke the surface.

"I know!" she sputtered back, watching the dorsal fin and tail fin winding through the waters between them. Drakken looked frantic in the brief glimpse of his face she saw, but she couldn't waste time to look at him. She took a deep breath and dove down beneath the waves again.

Shego's heart pounded as she stared at the massive, twenty-foot animal that was still blocking her from returning to the boat. She could blast it... But that might just make it mad. And at the moment it was moving slowly. Maybe it was just deciding if she was food or not?

Still holding her prize of a meal, she waited until the shark's tail had passed and she began rapidly kicking her way toward the boat. She caught sight of Drakken's hands paddling in the water as well, bringing the boat closer to her. With one hand occupied in holding the fish her progress was slower, and her heart leapt as the shark spun around again to face her as she crossed its path. The animal's rows of razor-sharp teeth appeared to be smiling. She had the brief thought that it was mocking her before she turned and swam with everything in her toward the boat.

"Shego!" she heard Drakken's voice clearly just before her head broke the surface again. She glanced to the side and saw the shark's fin rapidly approaching.

She tossed the fish into the boat and then lunged for the side. Drakken grabbed her arms and used all of his weight to lean back and help her up and inside. She felt the brush of something against the back of her leg as she struggled into the boat, falling on top of Drakken in the process. Breathing heavily, she glanced back to see the shark's fin turn again to continue its pacing.

"Are you all right?" Drakken asked in a panic.

"Yes," she said, carefully moving off of his chest to not rock the boat too harshly.

She spotted the fish she had killed near the bow, and then turned in time with Drakken as she sat up and looked at the shark again.

"It's a great white," Drakken supplied.

"I don't care what kind it is. Is it gonna attack the boat?"

"I don't know," he said.

Shego leaned back with a sigh as the adrenaline continued to course through her. She anxiously ran her fingers through her knotted hair as the sun dried her, continuing to watch the shark. It moved around to the other side of the boat with its same slow, seemingly lazy pattern. Drakken was leaning forward on his knees and studying it nervously.

"Maybe it's just...wondering what we are," he suggested after a minute.

"Yeah... What if its wondering includes test-bites," Shego said with a scowl.

Drakken gave her a curious look, but then they were both startled as the shark bumped into the side of the boat. They exchanged a fearful look.

"Wait... I have an idea. Lay down so it can't see us," Drakken said.

"Seriously? You _know_ that's how sharks work?" Shego asked skeptically as Drakken was already on his side and gesturing to the small space next to him.

"No, but...a boat can't smell appetizing. Maybe if it doesn't see us it will forget we're in here."

Shego wrung her wet hair out once before grunting in annoyance and laying down next to Drakken. Her arm brushed against his as he shifted to be on his back and completely concealed from the shark's view. After a moment she mirrored the pose.

The sun was high overhead, and if she wasn't wet Shego would have dragged the lab coat back over their faces. Instead she turned her head sideways to face Drakken and closed one eye to the sun. She found him already doing the same.

They regarded each other for a long moment before Drakken sighed in relief. Shego found her heart calming as she looked at him, his mind racing behind his eye in a way that was familiar.

"How long do you think it will stay?" she finally asked.

"I don't know. But white sharks are transient... This is probably just a chance encounter."

"So you know a lot about sharks?" Shego asked, raising her hand to cover the side of her face exposed to the sun. Drakken mirrored her pose.

"I had to research them before buying the sharks for the lair."

Shego thought to the rarely-used chamber beneath the false floor in the lab.

"What kind of sharks are those anyway?" she asked.

"Nurse sharks. They're...actually harmless," he admitted.

Shego opened her other eye beneath the shade of her hand. "You have harmless sharks in the shark tank where you intend to drop our enemies?"

"Nobody has to know... It's the threat that counts," Drakken reasoned.

Shego thought about the time the Attitudinator had turned Stoppable evil, and he had threatened her with the sharks. Drakken had a definite point...

"They're easy to take care of, too. Some sharks can't be kept in aquariums, such as the one out there," he said, glancing up to refer to the white shark.

"I thought you said the sharks in the lair are free range."

"They are. They're just...well-trained."

Shego almost asked how he had trained sharks to swim into the tank when needed, but then thought better of it. She sighed and closed her eyes briefly as considered the too-familiar sensation of the sun warming and drying her skin. She was almost ready to pull the lab coat over them again.

"At least I can relax around them when you feed them, now..." Shego muttered.

There was a silence after her words that gave her pause, and she opened her eyes to find Drakken staring at her curiously.

"I thought...you said you wanted to give up?" Drakken asked cautiously.

Shego realized she had been speaking as if they were going to be back at the lair any day. She shifted to lay on her side and peered up over the side of the boat cautiously. After a moment she saw the telltale triangular shape of the shark's fin as it swam past. She ducked down quickly and moved to lay on her back again.

"It's still out there?" Drakken asked.

Shego swallowed and nodded in confirmation. She realized then that she had been terrified of being mauled or killed by the shark...

"Maybe...maybe I've been letting all of this get to me," she said slowly.

She was surprised to feel Drakken's fingers entwine with hers, and she turned her head to see him looking at her almost desperately.

"We're fine. We're going to be fine," he insisted quietly.

Shego closed her eyes and sighed. "When that thing's gone I'll cook the fish."

Drakken fell silent, and after a few minutes she rested her head on his shoulder like she'd been doing the past few nights. A moment later he pulled the lab coat up to cover them from the heat of the sun. It didn't completely cover them both laying down, but when the shark was gone they could sit up again and receive better protection.

She considered the way she still couldn't quite catch her breath, for the panic she'd felt in the water. She also considered how...comforting it felt, to rest so close to him and have him hold her hand. Neither of the latter were things she'd have ever considered before they had been lost. But then, she also hadn't ever really listened to him talk before either. They had had more real conversations in the last seventy-two days than they had ever had in almost four years.

She had never wanted to talk with him before, she realized. It was just about the job, the money, and the evil. But now it was just the two of them and survival. And being nearer to him had slightly helped the hopelessness she felt, for some reason.

The boat was jostled slightly as the shark bumped into it again.

Shego made eye contact with Drakken in the heated darkness beneath his coat.

"So shark-expert, is it smart enough to try to knock us out of here?"

"I really think it's just... Wait. Shego, listen!"

Shego did so, and the repeated cry of a gull reached her ears. And then another, and then three.

Drakken flung the coat off of them and they both sat up in a hurry, further rocking the boat. Shego looked in one direction while Drakken looked in the other. All around was nothing but the blue-gray and white of the sparkling seas that met the blue of the sky at the horizon. But then Drakken grabbed her arm with one hand and pointed with the other.

"Shego!"

She squinted and saw the small slightly lighter gray lump in the distance that indicated an island. It was in the direction the current was pulling them, and the gulls flying overhead were an indication of how near it truly was.

She sat back heavily as she stared almost disbelievingly at their first sign of hope.

"Start paddling!" Drakken cried, reaching an arm deep into the water over the side of the boat. Shego grabbed his other arm and yanked him back.

"Not with that thing out there!" she cried and pointed meaningfully at the shark fin and tail still breaking the surface of the water.

"Oh... Can you...scare it off?"

Shego stared at him. "You tell me. If I agitate it, will it attack us?"

Drakken ducked his chin thoughtfully. "It might..."

Shego considered the situation. She looked between the island, the shark, and Drakken's suddenly concerned face. And after less than a minute of thought she set her hands ablaze.

"You really okay with this, if it turns out to be a very bad idea?" she asked.

Drakken's expression was unreadable as he nodded. She didn't like that. But, they couldn't risk losing their first chance of salvation.

Shego tried to mentally calculate for the way the water would change the angle of her blast, and then fired at the shark's head. The animal jerked in the water and its speed increased. It swam quickly away, but then spun back around toward their small boat. Drakken recoiled in fear, and Shego swallowed anxiously as she fired again at the animal. That time, the fins disappeared beneath the waves and didn't resurface.

Several seconds of silence followed as they looked around at the softly rolling waves. The shark didn't reappear.

"So..."

"It's probably just a few feet down," Drakken said.

Shego looked out at the small island in the distance. She wondered where exactly they had drifted in the two months they had been lost.

"Do you think it will attack me if I go down there after it?"

Drakken looked uncertain. "I don't know. Um... Let me look around this time."

Shego frowned. "No, idiot, that makes no sense. You can't do anything if it decides to attack you."

Drakken looked very reluctant as Shego held her breath and jumped into the water again. She held onto the side of the boat with both hands as she looked around in a hurry. Sure enough, the shark was still there, its massive form looming about ten feet down and six feet away from the boat. Shego let go and shot a massive blast at it. The shark only moved a few feet away, still seeming to want to hang around the boat. Shego then shot at it several times in rapid succession, and the animal turned and quickly vanished down and away into the dark blue waters below.

She almost forgot herself and sighed in relief before she surfaced, and again Drakken helped her back into the boat.

"Okay. Paddle," she said without preamble before even fully climbing inside.

"Is it gone?"

"For now. Let's go!" she insisted.

Drakken leaned over one side of the boat and she the other as they paddled the boat weakly toward their new destination. The continued cry of gulls overhead was their encouragement as their weak arms quickly tired, their muscles having atrophied from lack of use. But Shego found it surprisingly easy to ignore the burn and weariness she felt for the hope of reaching land.

She realized with clarity then that she didn't want to die. She may have reached a point of hopelessness about her life, but she knew then as salvation was finally in sight that she still wanted her life...if only to decide what to do about it. To be in control, rather than being stuck in the tiny boat, was more desirable than death.

"Hold on..." Drakken said, and Shego paused and looked up. They were close enough to the island now to make out the tropical trees far back from the vast white sand of the beaches. Shego was breathless from the effort of paddling, and also from relief that the island wasn't just a mirage. The waves were still bringing them closer to the island with surprising speed.

Shego sat back and relaxed with a heavy sigh as she watched the land growing nearer. A moment later Drakken sat back next to her. She looked over to his face and was surprised to see anxiety there, rather than relief as she had expected.

"What's wrong?"

Drakken seemed startled by the question, and only glanced at her before responding. "Nothing. I think we can just drift in."

Shego looked down at their clothes and boots shoved down into the stern, the lab coat lain haphazardly across the bottom of the boat, and the dead fish lying in the bow. The tiny boat that had been their home for seventy-two days was soon to be just a boat again, as the island would provide if nothing else, better food and shelter. But it may even provide a way back home.

Shego looked at Drakken's anxious face again and wondered what he wasn't telling her.

"Drakken?"

He looked down at her and swallowed anxiously.

"Um. Shego?"

She looked at him slightly impatiently. After weeks of telling each other almost everything, including his confession of his feelings, something suddenly making him shy was an unwelcome change.

"Spit it out, Doc."

He looked down briefly, and then up with nervous eyes.

"Can I...can I kiss you?"

Shego's eyes widened. She hadn't expected that.

She considered the question in the context of everything they had gone through, including her revisiting of the idea of giving up and the subsequent surprise of the shark that morning. It was uncharacteristically bold of him to suggest such a thing... Especially since she had already told him that she didn't love him.

After a long moment she let a small sigh escape through her nose. She felt her chest and shoulders tense slightly as she gave him a small nod of assent. He may turn out to be a good kisser, and she supposed there was no harm in it... And if he tried anything weird she could just blast him out of the boat.

Drakken's eyes widened in surprise at her given permission. He cleared his throat nervously and then gently set one hand behind her head to draw her in. She felt her heart start beating harder. Before he had fully closed the distance she was put off by the fishy smell of his breath and his overall ripe odor. But she knew she smelled exactly the same and put it out of her mind.

His thin lips touched her large pillowy ones, gentle, chaste, and soft, as if she were glass and he was afraid he might break her. She closed her eyes as almost instantly she was transported to another place by the new and tender touch. She found herself first relieved and then annoyed that apparently, that was all he intended with the kiss. She parted her lips slightly and softly pulled against his. She heard his sharp intake of breath through his nose and felt him tense under her small response, so she repeated the action trying to relax him. It worked, and she felt him respond in kind as he parted his lips and mimicked her movements.

She was pleased to discover that once he had lost his fear of probably being blasted as she had considered, he was in fact a good kisser. She set a hand on his shoulder as his lips continued to glide over hers in unspoken communication of adoration and affection, and she was surprised to find herself happily receiving the touch and equally happy to return it. She didn't enjoy the scratchy feeling of his beard and mustache, but nothing could be done about that.

The imaginary world behind her eyes was broken as a large bump at the front of the boat jarred them both out of the kiss. They turned and saw that the boat had arrived at the white beach, the bump being its impact with the sand. They looked at each other briefly, and then in a second they were both out of the boat and dragging it up the sands and beyond into the grass that grew past the beach. It wouldn't do to lose the boat, even if Shego hoped she never had to set foot in the thing again.

The small vessel secure, Shego began slowly looking around and Drakken followed suit. The island seemed incredibly small and flat, with trees growing sparsely for most of what they could see. But there was a darker interior that was beyond their view, and a small hill. Perhaps the island was inhabited... And if not, it was still better than the boat.

Shego turned to Drakken to ask if he wanted to check over the hill, but her words dried up as she saw him wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. She saw the telltale moisture of tears.

"What?" she asked.

He seemed startled, and gave her a small, sad smile before shaking himself of whatever emotion had come over him.

"Nothing. Just...being selfish."

Shego's brow furrowed, but she looked down and took two steps in the grass, relishing in the feeling of anything solid beneath her feet. And then she turned back to the boat and grabbed her clothes. Drakken did the same a moment later, and they wordlessly stumbled around as they got back into their familiar attire. Shego frowned at the way her suit hung off her frame, no longer hugging her curves; most of her curves were gone as it was.

"Boots don't fit," Drakken suddenly warned, and she looked to see him sitting down in the grass, now clad in his trousers and shirt, struggling to get one boot on. She looked at his feet, and then her own. They were swollen. She grimaced and left her boots in the boat as Drakken tossed his back in. He also left his lab coat, and then he surprised her by reaching for her hand and holding it as they left the boat and approached the island's interior.

They were heading towards the hill, but when they reached the heavy shade of the denser trees they both stopped. Like the ground beneath her feet, the shade was an even more glorious sensation. They stood for a few moments before Drakken released her hand and fell to his knees. Shego watched as he ruminated for a few seconds, examining the grass under his hands before lying down on his side and folding his arm under his head as he scooted near the base of a deciduous tree. He then startled at nothing and looked up at her, as if he had forgotten she was there. Shego knelt more slowly but joined him, laying down to face him and taking in the feeling of the grass too. It was soft and harsh at the same time, but she didn't care. Anything but the boat...

Drakken sighed deeply in exhaustion and reached for her hand again. Shego was slightly surprised, but let him hold her hand as his eyes closed. She followed suit only seconds later, and in minutes they were both deeply asleep.

* * *

Shego awoke to near-darkness and for a moment forgot where she was. But then seeing Drakken's still face in the grass brought it back to her. She sighed in relief and watched a large stick-bug crawl across Drakken's sleeve as he slept. After a moment she flicked it away with the backs of her fingers, and then impulsively moved to be closer to Drakken.

His eyes opened and he gasped in shock, his eyes darting around as hers had. His frame relaxed slowly and his eyes fell to where Shego was starting to curl into his chest. She only gave him a brief glance before closing her eyes again with her head tucked under his chin and her knees bumping against his.

She had no explanation to give him. She just knew that whatever had started bringing her to his side at night four days prior was still present in her mind. She held his hand a bit more tightly where it lay on the grass between them, the space much smaller now. He squeezed her hand back and she felt him relax. She wondered what he was thinking, but she was far too tired to ask. In moments, she was asleep again.

* * *

The next time Shego woke it was almost dawn. An unfamiliar chirping of birds reached her ears, and she realized that was what had woken her. She regarded Drakken's still-sleeping form and was about to sit up, when she realized there was a small weight over her waist. Drakken's arm had found its way around her as they slept, and he was pulling her nearer to him.

Shego pursed her lips, but rather than moving took in the sensation. It was...nice, to be so near to him. But was it because it was him, or just because it was nice to be near to anyone?

That was the question she had been testing for the past several nights and still had no answer to. She sighed silently through her nose and settled into his unintentional embrace, peering at his face in the morning's darkness.

His face had more lines on it from exposure to the sun and the harsh sea air. She imagined hers was much the same. His hair was still tied back per her advice, so he didn't have half the tangles and knots that she did. But his hair was notably longer and reached past his shoulders now. His beard had grown slowly, and even though it was thin and still fairly short, it made his already broad chin look almost comically large. The black and gray hairs did nothing for his appearance, especially as they were growing freely and un-groomed.

Shego reached her hand up to touch his weather-worn cheek, and the second her fingers touched the blue skin, his eyes opened. She withdrew her hand quickly.

Drakken blinked into her face as his disorientation passed, and then he began to stretch. His eyes widened as he realized he was holding her, and in a second he had whirled away and was sitting up.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" he cried desperately.

Shego sat up more slowly. "It's okay."

Drakken took a moment to study her face and then relaxed. He had looked afraid of being blasted.

Shego stretched and looked around at the flat, grassy island.

"Food, or look around? What do you want to do first?" she asked.

Drakken considered. "Look around. If there are people here...maybe they'll give us water."

Shego nodded and stood up. She was instantly dizzy and stumbled into the closest tree trunk as her vision swam. She heard a grunt and saw that Drakken had been affected similarly as he leaned against the same trunk.

They had never stood in the boat. They only exercised by swimming, per her insistence. She supposed the combination of dehydration and their muscles unused to supporting their weight was what caused it.

After a moment they checked that the other was all right with a look, and receiving a look of assent they turned and wordlessly headed toward the hill. If the island was inhabited, or if it was larger than it appeared, seeing over the hill would tell them.

They crested the shallow, grassy slope in no time and saw...more grass and trees. And more beach. Her initial assessment that they were hardly on an island had been correct. And it wasn't part of an atoll, as she had secretly hoped. Those often had multiple islands and sometimes lighthouses and air strips. But the place they found themselves was entirely isolated.

Her heart sank, and she felt the familiar hopelessness starting to clutch at her chest. But then she felt Drakken's hand grab hers tightly. She looked up at him, his jaw set in determination and his eyes intense. It was as if he knew exactly what she would be thinking.

"Do you want to get food?" he asked quickly. "And I'll start building a smoke signal."

Shego considered him for a moment. She felt a slight warming sensation in her heart at the way he refused to let her give up. She nodded and let go of his hand.

"Right..." he said, and after giving her a long, assessing look, he turned back to the widest and flattest strip of beach where they had landed the day before.

Shego started looking up at the towering palms and the shorter deciduous trees that provided the thicker shade. She realized there were two types of palms, one shorter and fatter than the others. Those palms definitely had a fruit growing on them; something small in clusters.

Shego sighed and after a moment she simply shot her glow up at one of the clusters. It fell and landed several feet away from her. She approached the golden-colored mound of small fruits warily, but as she got closer her eyes widened.

_'Dates...?'_

She plucked one of the familiar fruits and ripped it open, pulling the pit out and then tentatively took a bite. It was sickeningly sweet and fibrous, just as she knew the fruit to be.

"Where _are_ we?"

She looked around the tiny island again, and then after a moment she hauled up the large cluster of fruits and headed back to the beach where Drakken appeared to be laying out dried palm leaves.

"Hey Dr. D.," she called when she was close enough. "I found dates."

Drakken turned toward her and his brow furrowed. "Dates?"

"Yep," she said, dropping the heavy cluster at the edge of the tree line. Drakken approached her and looked down at the fruits, and then around them as she had done before. Shego knew his mind was trying to work out just where they had landed if dates were growing wild. "Doc... I have a bad feeling that we may have discovered another new island."

Drakken frowned and reached down for one of the golden fruits.

"Take the pit out first," Shego cautioned.

"I know that," Drakken almost snapped as he ripped into the end of the fruit with his teeth.

Shego watched as he ate around the pit for half of the fruit, and then tossed the rock-hard center to the ground before devouring the rest quickly.

"Let's finish the signal first," Shego said as Drakken looked down at the pile of fruit.

He nodded with a sigh, and the two of them stepped back out into the glow of the sunrise. For over an hour they dragged dried palm leaves and other dead foliage out onto the flat sands, arranging them to spell 'HELP' hopefully in large enough lettering that a plane could read. They lined the letters with large rocks, and by that time the heat of the day had already grown to an intensity that they both went without their shirts as they finished the signal.

"Satisfied?" Drakken asked in annoyance as he wiped sweat from his brow with the edge of his tank top. Shego glanced at him, but set her hands on her hips as she cast her eyes down the length of the beach and studied their handiwork. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the signal they had built. It was just that she was concerned it wouldn't work.

Building up hope, only to have it shot to pieces if they weren't rescued, would be devastating. The very idea of it clawed at her heart with a pain and intensity greater than the hopelessness she had already been fighting for weeks.

"Shego?"

She glanced angrily over her shoulder at Drakken, and then with a snarl she fired her glow at the nearest of the dried palm leaves. She watched them ignite, the flames spreading throughout the large letter 'H' they had created, but it gave her no satisfaction. She continued down the length of beach, Drakken behind her, and ignited the rest of the four letters. She jogged to the last one, the smoke quickly surrounding them and making it difficult to breathe, and as soon as it was lit she ran coughing back into the trees. Drakken followed her, and after a moment he grabbed her hand and began leading the way to...somewhere.

Shego followed, and a few minutes later she found they were back at the cluster of dates she had dropped. They were too near the beach however, and smoke was wafting towards them. Drakken hefted up the mound of fruit and turned to go further into the island. With nothing else to do, Shego followed.

Drakken led them over the hill and away from the smoke before he finally dropped the dates under a deciduous tree in a particularly grassy and shaded spot. Shego sat down across from him with the fruit between them.

She fought the temptation to fall back into despair and instead looked at his puzzled face as he looked between the dates and their surroundings. After a minute of silence, he coughed, wiped the smoky sweat from his face on his already-filthy tank top, and then frowned down at the fruit.

"The only logical place there would be dates is...west Africa," he finally commented.

"Like I said..." Shego said, wiping her own face. "I think we've discovered a new island. Definitely small enough to have gone unnoticed..."

Drakken looked at her, and then grabbed a handful of dates.

"Don't eat too many," Shego said as she also grabbed a handful.

"How do we know how many is too many?" Drakken asked with a frown.

Shego shrugged. "Don't fill up, I guess."

Several minutes passed in silence. The only sounds around them were their own chewing, the chirping of small birds, and the roar of flames over the hill.

After several minutes, Drakken sighed. "We'll need to keep eating fish for water. I didn't see any water sources."

Shego frowned as she chewed a slightly-unripe date. She could live without seafood for the rest of her life. However...

"I'm going to take a bath," she declared suddenly, standing up and heading towards the part of the island they hadn't fully explored.

Drakken regarded her with slight confusion as she passed him, but then he turned to look after her suddenly.

"What about riptides?"

Shego grimaced. There were plenty of hazards in the sea, as they had discovered. Dangerous tides, sharks, jellyfish, squid...

"I'll shout if anything happens," she answered, and continued on.

A few seconds later she heard feet running after her. She turned and saw Drakken carrying the dates.

"Look, Dr. D., I'm not bothered with you being in love with me, but I don't want you watching me bathe."

Drakken's face blushed purple. "I'm not! I just...want to be closer, in case something does happen."

Shego raised a skeptical eyebrow, but continued on to the beach. When she cleared the treeline Drakken stopped in the shade. Shego turned back and flared her hands lightly.

"Don't watch me."

"I won't! I promise," he insisted, biting his lower lip anxiously.

Shego sighed through her nose and turned back to the beach. She stripped out of her pants at the edge of the grass but waited until she was nearer to the water to quickly take the rest of her clothes off and run out into the sea. She trusted Drakken's motives... What she didn't trust was that he wouldn't accidentally look, or mistakenly assume she was in danger, or something else irrational and nonsensical.

The waters were thankfully calm, and the beach shallow. She had to go quite far before she could submerge herself and still remain safely standing out of the more dangerous, deeper tides. But she doubted Drakken's assertion that anything bad would happen.

_'Probably just afraid of being alone...'_

She realized in that moment...that was the first time in seventy-three days she and Drakken had been parted. She turned and looked back at the beach. She couldn't see him anywhere, which meant he was being true to his word and not watching her. She supposed he was behind a tree, listening for her and still eating dates. She grimaced and ducked her face beneath the waves to wet all of her hair.

Actually trying to get clean with the promise of staying clean was new, and she spent time raking her bitten-down fingernails against her flesh and her scalp, trying to get every bit of grime off of her. She realized she could probably get her tank top and undergarments somewhat cleaner too, if she found some rocks to use like a washboard. But that could wait. Perhaps when Drakken took his turn to bathe.

After she felt like she had scraped away an entire layer of her skin, she headed back to shore. She still couldn't see Drakken, but was nervous that he might suddenly appear just as she was trying to get dressed.

Once on the beach, she sprinted to her clothes and put on everything but her pants as she was still dripping wet. She hated putting the dirty things on when she finally felt almost clean. She decided washing her clothes needed to come sooner after all.

She walked back to where she had last seen Drakken at the treeline.

"Shego?" she heard his voice nervously from behind a trunk. She smirked and approached it.

"You can look now," she said.

He nervously peeked around the trunk and she watched his entire frame un-tense as he saw she was dressed.

Shego tossed her folded pants over her other arm. "Okay, your turn."

Drakken shifted to look at her. "My...?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, you stink."

"I noticed," Drakken said with a frown as he stood up, puffing up a bit.

Shego shifted from one foot to the other as he stood in front of her. "Hey, I'm gonna find a way to wash my clothes. Do you...want me to do yours too, while you get cleaned up?"

Drakken blinked. "Wash my...?"

His eyes traveled down, and Shego's followed to his filthy white tank top and his dark blue pants. Her eyes lingered at his waistline for a moment as something occurred to her. It had clearly occurred to Drakken too, because when Shego followed his eyes back up and they made eye contact they both blushed.

"Look, I'm not gonna offer again. You'll be happier in clean clothes."

Drakken began fidgeting nervously. "But, um, how will you...and then how will I...?"

"I'll just...go to another part of the beach. And you wait for me to come back."

"But...but what if there's a shark, or something?" he protested anxiously.

"Honestly, I'm not sure I'd want to save you if you're naked."

Drakken looked affronted, and then angry. "I would save you!"

Shego smirked. "Not quite the same, is it."

Drakken looked slightly confused and then his cheeks colored again. He frowned angrily and stalked away toward the beach, yanking his tank top off and dropping it in the process. Shego followed him and picked up the dirty garment, tossing it over her arm with her folded pants.

"You know, it's not true that every man is attracted to every naked woman they see," he muttered.

"Oh really?" Shego chuckled.

"Yes, really!"

"Doesn't apply in this situation. You're in love with me, remember?"

She watched from behind as Drakken tensed. As he dropped his pants and stepped out of them, she wondered if she had taken the teasing too far. In reality, part of the her motivation was to dispel the awkwardness she suddenly felt after suggesting she wash his clothes.

Drakken balled up his pants and hurled them back toward her and continued walking. She picked them up and tried to straighten them out to lay over her arm.

Drakken paused again and glanced back over his shoulder. "I suppose I don't have to tell you not to look."

Shego's smirk grew. "Unless you want me to."

Drakken snarled. When he started pulling his boxers off Shego turned and faced away down the length of the beach. She looked up to where the smoke from the opposite side of the island was still towering and blowing away from the island. She wasn't sure what direction, since for once she had slept through the night. When the stars came out that night they would need to find their compass points. Not that there was anything they could do with the knowledge...

She jumped slightly when Drakken's boxers suddenly landed on her feet. She very nearly forgot herself and turned to yell at him, but she remembered in the nick of time and only stepped away from the offending garment. After a moment she kicked it up with her toes and caught it over her arm. Just because she had volunteered to wash his things didn't mean she had to touch them any more than necessary.

With all of the clothing secure over her arm, she wordlessly and briskly strode away down the beach. She realized she would probably need to get much farther away to be out of his sight-line as well, and so after a few minutes she cut through the trees and found a place more secluded and with some decently-sized sea rocks. It also occurred to her that she could wash their shirts, and she hurried back to the side of the island with the smoke signal. She collected their discarded shirts from beneath a tree, and then after a moment of thought grabbed Drakken's lab coat and their boots from inside the boat. It would be more efficient to wash everything at once.

When she made it back to her chosen place to wash, she glanced nervously back through the trees in the direction she knew Drakken was bathing. She couldn't see anything, and so logically neither could he. She stripped again, and after soaking her underwear and wringing it out three times, she beat the garment against the rock fiercely. She wet it and wrung it out once more, and then glancing around, she hung it over a low-hanging branch of one of the deciduous trees.

She repeated the process with the rest of her clothing as quickly as she could, glancing over her shoulder every time she wrung something out. She realized again that she was alone, after seventy-three days of being literally less than three feet from Drakken at all times.

It made her oddly anxious to be without him, as she had almost forgotten how to be alone with her own thoughts. Her mind began racing over everything... Their current circumstance. Her disdain for the ocean itself when she looked out toward the horizon. And Drakken's feelings for her.

His declaration had been oddly easy to ignore when they were trapped in the boat. But now with the freedom to move around the tiny island, and the ability to choose whether or not to stay in his presence...suddenly it was all she could think about. She knew it had been her motivation to tease him so much as he went to bathe. And aside from her telling him the day before that she wasn't in love with him, the teasing had been her only mention or acknowledgement of what he had said.

Among the thoughts she had had over the past almost thirty days since he had told her, she wondered if he had been genuine. His behavior toward her hadn't changed at all, and she wondered more than once if it had been only a ploy to get her to stop feeling suicidal.

But then he had asked to kiss her.

Why? And why when they had been approaching the island and their focus should have been on reaching land? After she had granted permission, he had seemed content to keep kissing her until they bumped into the island. In fact, she had lost herself in the moment and had no idea how long they had actually spent in the tender caress of lips.

She wanted to lie to herself and imagine that she had enjoyed it as only a kiss. But she knew that part of her enjoyment was due to the fact that the kiss had been with a man who was in love with her...

The fact that it was Drakken was the most confusing part of all. She wasn't wrong about what she'd told him. She wasn't in love with him. But she also...wasn't bothered that he was in love with her.

What on earth did that mean?

Logically, she should feel something. Sorry for him, or embarrassed, or disgusted, or...something. But instead she was somewhat intrigued. The man she had known only as her dorky, distracted, overly-intense boss had in seventy-three days become something of a confidant and had far more depth to him than she could have imagined.

He was, in fact, very intelligent. And when they had talked about more serious matters and she had listened, he had insightful things to say when he could be coaxed to speak. As it turned out, he was quite shy and prodding him into talking didn't work very well. He said more when given space, and trust that mocking wouldn't follow his rarely-shared opinions. And when he relaxed enough around her, he could even be a bit funny.

As Shego hung his shirt over a tree branch to dry, she shook herself of the thoughts she was slipping into. She wasn't interested in him. She never had been. And nothing about being trapped on a boat for over two months had changed that. She just had more respect for him, and more trust. Friendship too, she realized.

But not love.

She filled and emptied their boots with the salt water and then left them sitting out in the sun near the edge of the grass. She also only wet and wrung out his lab coat once. It wasn't nearly as bad as everything else, since it had served as more of an umbrella and a blanket through their tenure in the boat, and she didn't want to ruin it.

After hanging it she checked her own clothes and decided that her underwear and tank top were dry enough. She put them back on and cautiously crept back through the trees toward the beach where Drakken was bathing. She realized she had been gone far longer washing the clothes than when she had taken her bath, and she wasn't sure what to make of the fact that Drakken had been silent the entire time.

She cautiously peered through the trees when she got closer to his side of the beach, and squinting she could make out his head and shoulders poking above the waves in the shallows. He was probably sitting and waiting for her, she realized. She sighed in relief and stepped out of the trees as she continued her approach so he could see her.

"All finished, Dr. D.!" she called when she was still a good ways off just in case he decided to stand. She watched him scan the beach until he found her, and she moved closer so she could speak without shouting. "Your clothes are drying over there," she said and pointed. "I'm going to go...uh...eat some dates."

She turned after seeing his rather perturbed expression of acknowledgement and hurried away. She didn't want to take any chances of making their circumstances any more embarrassing than they already were. She was suddenly aware as she hurried back to the tree with the dates that she was really just wearing her underwear. And she had been wearing just her underwear around him for weeks.

She sat down in the grass beneath the shade of the tree, grateful to be out of the sun again, and started eating dates. She still had the presence of mind to eat carefully to avoid the dangerous pits. But she was eating quickly as suddenly being trapped on the island with Drakken felt a lot more awkward than being trapped in the boat had been. She considered for a moment, and realized it was because they were no longer fighting for survival. The island could sustain them for presumably a long time. Hopefully it wouldn't have to, if the smoke signal worked.

But now being together was a choice, rather than a forced necessity. Technically she could ignore him for as long as she wanted. The island had food and shelter options, and she could get her own fish. She hadn't even checked yet to see if there were other food sources, such as coconuts, which would make being around him even less important.

She leaned back against a tree trunk as she considered the new option she had realized. She _could_ stay away from Drakken... Did she want to?

She frowned at herself and after licking her fingers clean of the sticky fruit sugar, she began attempting to untangle her hair. She had tried to maintain it almost from the beginning, so it could have ended up a lot worse. But it had some large knots that she simply hadn't been able to get out, mostly near the nape of her neck. Now that she was in a better position to work on them, she separated her hair until she had the first draped atop her shoulder and began working at it blindly.

Her mind went blank as she focused on the difficult task, so much so that she almost didn't hear Drakken approaching. She turned with a small gasp when she realized the footsteps were right behind her and at the same time was embarrassed for her reaction as she looked into the confused eyes of the blue man. Who else would it be?

Like her, he was clad only in his underwear and tank top. He looked oddly nervous to be approaching her.

"Sorry, um... My pants weren't dry yet," he said by way of greeting.

Shego's gaze fell to his dark blue boxers which were almost at her eye level, and she felt her face flush. She glanced away with a frown.

"Want to announce every time you need to use the facilities too?"

Drakken's brow furrowed. "We already do that."

Shego grimaced. They did. It had been a necessity on the boat.

"Just shut up."

"What's wrong with you?" Drakken asked as he sat down and grabbed some dates off of the cluster.

Shego's pulling at the knot in her hair became uncoordinated. What _was_ wrong with her? She didn't know. Just that she suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable around him.

She ignored the question as she pulled too hard at the knot and made a small sound of discomfort as her frown grew. She peripherally saw Drakken's brow furrow.

"Would you like help with that?" he asked.

"No," Shego said curtly.

Drakken licked the date sugar from his fingers as she had done and moved closer to her.

"I can see it though, you can't."

Shego considered the practicality of what he said. She also noted the concern in his eyes, and the way he looked almost afraid of her saying no. She pursed her lips and sighed. She almost said yes...and then she stood up instead.

"Let's look around and see what else is on this island."

The concern didn't leave Drakken's eyes, but he nodded and stood up next to her.

They walked as much of the island's perimeter as they could, but they were stopped by the massive smoke signal they had created. In all, it took less than an hour to walk around the entire beach, calculating in the strip they had used for their signal. Only one side of the beach had rocks, and when they passed it they collected the rest of their clothes. The trees of the island weren't too sparse, but they weren't thick either. The earth beneath the grass was mostly sand rather than soil, so the grass was thin and short. There were about a dozen gulls on one part of the beach, but for the most part there seemed to be some small perching birds that lived in the still-unidentified deciduous trees.

Shego mentioned the stick-bug to Drakken as he tried to reason out where in the Atlantic they might be, and that new fact stopped everything he had been saying about being near the coast of Africa. Stick bugs didn't live there, he informed her, and the concern in his eyes grew deeper. But the perching birds had to mean they were near to a larger land mass, because they were short-flight creatures and couldn't have made it to the island on their own if it was too far out; he insisted that wherever they were, rescue would be coming soon. Shego ignored the clenching pain in her chest at his optimism by teasing him about his knowledge of stick-bugs.

After walking back and forth across the island twice they didn't find anything new, but became very familiar with their tiny piece of land. The small hill was in the very center, and all it did was slightly conceal the opposing beach. The deciduous trees were just as numerous as the date palms, and the other taller palms were more sparse and mostly grew nearer to the beach. There were also a few dense shrubs that looked out of place, but those were all clustered in one area. Shego commented that the island almost seemed 'new,' as if someone had built it up out of the ocean. Drakken said there would be signs of human interaction if that was so.

They finally returned to where they had left the dates, and after both had donned their pants they sat down and ate more of the sugary fruits. The sun had drained Shego, and she found herself wanting to close her eyes and lay down even though it was still late morning. Instead, she resumed attempting to get the knot out of her hair.

"Shego... Are you sure you don't want help with that?"

Shego looked at his face, still concerned, but lacking the fear she had seen in his eyes before their exploration. She sighed heavily.

"Fine," she said, making sure to express plenty of displeasure that she didn't actually feel. The problem was more that she did want his help...and she didn't want to show it. And she wasn't sure why.

She sat up straighter as Drakken's fingers began working at the knot in her hair. She didn't know what to say, and so said nothing at all. After a minute she found another knot and pulled it atop her other shoulder to work on herself.

After several minutes spent in silent frustration, Shego was about to declare it all pointless when Drakken laid a strand of freed hair over her shoulder, followed by another. She craned her neck to see the large knot...which she couldn't...but apparently having him help might mean she didn't have to cut her hair after all.

Several more minutes gained more freed strands of hair from the knot Drakken was working on, but none from the one she was doing. She sighed and gave up, leaning back on her hands in the sandy grass.

"Look, you don't have to do this," she said, looking up at his face which was much closer than usual, even in the boat.

His brow was furrowed in concentration, but he did glance at her briefly and lifted one corner of his mouth, the resulting expression unreadable. Shego sighed again and watched his face for a minute.

"You want me to work on your knots?"

Drakken looked confused. "Can you see them?"

"I think so," she said, shifting to sit on her knees. She had to lean her arm on one of his shoulders to get access to his hair, while still giving him access to hers. She ignored how very close it put the two of them, because, that shouldn't matter, and she started carefully trying to pull the elastic out of his hair which was where he had a few small knots.

"Um, Shego?"

"Hold on, I've got this," she said, focusing on his hair.

It was much easier to accept his generous untangling of her mane if she could do something in return. She wanted to argue with herself that she owed him nothing for his gesture, but, she really owed him a lot more. It had been just a month into their being lost that she had been ready to give up and let the sea take them, and he had talked her off the ledge with the shocking declaration of his feelings. But it was more than that. Since that day he had seemed to put his own grumbling about their circumstances aside and focus only on her, and on making sure she was still doing well all things considered. And when she had been ready to give up again, he still wouldn't let her.

She didn't know what she had been thinking anyway. Of course she didn't want to die. It was just the sight of nothing but gray waters, rolling and churning, and blinding her with the white reflection of sunlight, day after day after countless day... Just existing wasn't enough for her. She needed to _live_. But Drakken had been right. It did seem that things were going to turn in their favor.

"Shego, are you sure you're okay with this?"

The nervous and higher timbre of his voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and she suddenly realized the position she had put them in. The way she had moved, he had been forced to put his arms around her to still be able to use both hands on her hair as she worked on his. She also had half of her chest pressed firmly up against his shoulder. Her chest, clad only in a tank top since she had left her restricting sports bra behind.

She leaned back quickly.

"Sorry," she said, glancing away into the grass. She waited a second and then looked back up and was surprised to see his face deeply flushed and his hands hovering in the air between them and his fingers twitching.

She pursed her lips. Her first instinct was to tease him, as she had done regarding washing his clothes. That was the easiest way out. But as she took a breath and opened her mouth to speak, something entirely different came out.

"Why did you want to kiss me?"

Drakken seemed to shrink without even moving as he stared at her.

"What?"

"Yesterday, after we paddled over here. Before we landed you asked to kiss me."

Drakken swallowed slowly.

"Don't tell me it was _that_ bland of an experience," she said, letting a tiny smirk curl her lips upward.

"No, it—of course it wasn't— I...ngh, never-mind," he growled and reached for a date.

"But why? What was the point?"

She really did want to know. Why ask to kiss her when she had said very plainly that she didn't love him?

"If it was some sort of...stupid masculine macho thing, then—"

"No! Nothing like that, I just...you... Nrrgh, never-mind!" he almost shouted.

He shifted to angle his body away from her and set his elbows on his knees, and then set his tense jaw on his fists as he frowned away into the trees.

Shego regarded him curiously. "I'm just going to keep asking."

"I'm going to keep not answering," Drakken fired back.

"...Then why don't you walk away?"

Drakken glanced at her, fear briefly darting through his eyes. He looked away again and sighed deeply.

"Being alone with my thoughts is worse than being pestered by you."

Shego considered again that she could tease him. She found it interesting in fact that she could still affect him, considering how vile she had been toward him early in their isolation. Part of her wanted to test just how much she could get under his skin... But the other part was stronger.

She crawled over the dates and moved to sit in front of him.

"Why did you want to kiss me?"

Drakken looked up and studied her through his pout, seeming to weigh his options. After almost thirty seconds he sighed, and then gestured upwards towards the sky. Shego looked up to where the smoke billowed high above the tree tops, the wind carrying it...in a direction yet to be determined. She hoped it was towards a nearby mainland or larger island.

"Because...as soon as we're rescued..." He trailed off weakly and then scoffed before frowning and setting his chin on his hands again.

She tried to follow his train of thought and couldn't. Nothing she could think of to finish his sentence made sense. But he looked so miserable now that she couldn't bring herself to keep prying. Instead she moved around behind him and started working at the knots in his hair. He drew in a sharp breath and sat up straighter at her touch.

"This won't take long, your hair's in pretty good shape. Uh... Could you work on mine some more after I finish here?"

She heard him sigh and saw the tension slowly begin to leave his shoulders.

"If you want."

De-tangling Drakken's hair took about half an hour, and Shego was conscious this time of how she sat and tried to keep her distance. Though she did lean her forearms on his back at one point when she got tired. If they didn't get rescued soon, she would need to devise a way of weight-training to get her strength back up.

She finger-combed his hair when she finished and put it back in a ponytail for him, noting how much longer it had gotten in the two months they'd been lost. She almost asked what it was that made his hair grow so fast, but she didn't want to risk anything that might add to the tension she had created. She also noticed that the slightly higher ponytail she gave him made his beard look slightly less offensive.

De-tangling her hair was a much longer ordeal. The signal fire had burned out before Drakken even finished with the first knot, and they reluctantly went back to the smoke-laden side of the island to restart it. After that Shego caught fish so they could get some hydration, the dates providing none, and after their second meal of the day they took a nap. Shego assumed their exhaustion was due to not being used to so much labor, even if it was just dragging palm fronds over the beach. But there was also the heat of the fire and the smoke to consider, plus the fact that they weren't used to walking anymore. It sort-of made sense.

Drakken offered to continue working on her hair after they had both woken up, and they talked vaguely again about the possible places they could have ended up after drifting across open seas for two months from their Caribbean lair. Nothing made sense, and more out of frustration than anything they again gave up on trying to figure out where they were and decided to just wait for rescue. Although Shego reminded him that if they stayed awake that day until the stars came out, they could at least find their compass points.

The rest of the daylight was spent idly chewing on dates and Drakken still working to de-tangle her hair. A few times she had become annoyed at the pulling and insisted he just give up, but he was adamant that it could be done. Most of the time was also spent in silence, Shego more aware now that Drakken being in love with her also meant he was attracted to her; his earlier blush after being so close to her had been her wake-up call to that fact. Why that hadn't occurred to her before she didn't know. But almost for the first time, she was aware that her posture and even the way she looked at him might illicit thoughts or feelings in him that neither of them wanted.

The question about his desire to kiss her still burned in her mind, but she was waiting to bring it up again until a moment she thought he would feel comfortable in answering it.

She smirked to herself as she realized that her distraction over Drakken's feelings had put her concern over their situation away from the front of her thoughts. She didn't mind not worrying about that... Although she didn't exactly want to spend all of her time thinking about Drakken. She found it a dangerous preoccupation, as the thought she'd had back in the boat that had ended up unspoken kept coming back to her.

Drakken had interrupted her when she said she didn't love him. And at the time she'd been okay with it, and had almost forgotten... But now she felt compelled to finish the sentence.

"Shego, what if when...someone comes to rescue us, they turn out to be hostile? Or pirates, or something?"

"Then we'll just steal their ship, and anything else they bring..." Shego said, her tone on the edge of impatient. She had never had her hair fussed with for so many hours. She reached behind her and grabbed her hair out of his hands. "Dr. D., this is getting to ridiculous."

There was a brief pause. "But I'm almost done!" Drakken protested.

Shego felt at the hair she had grabbed and sure enough, she felt familiar and thick locks—a bit dirty, and definitely more textured from being tangled—but without the massive knots that had been there before. She let go of her hair and his fingers were back in it pulling at the last, tiny knot instantly.

"Do you know how to braid hair?" Shego asked.

"No?" he said.

"You'll learn. In fact, I'll do yours too when you're done with—"

"Done!"

Shego blinked. She slowly ran her fingers through her hair where she had felt nothing but matted knots for weeks. She felt a small weight lift off of her chest, as having her hair finally de-tangled added to the sense of approaching normalcy that being on the island as opposed to the boat had given her. But an instant later she felt the familiar pain of hopelessness as she wondered... The sun had just gone down, and the first stars were coming out. They hadn't seen any boats or heard any planes. And their signal fire had burned all day.

She took a deep breath. "I'm going to French-braid my hair. You help."

"Ah...I don't know—"

"Just hold the pieces of hair I give you and don't let them get mixed up with the others."

Shego shifted to be on her knees with her back fully to Drakken and began the difficult process of putting her hair into a style where knots would be less likely. Drakken obediently held each lock of hair she gave him and was mostly silent throughout the process as he paid attention to how it was done. By the time she had finished, the purple of the sunset was nearly gone from the sky. She held the thick end of the braid and looked around for a moment before narrowing her eyes up at Drakken's hair.

"I need this more than you," she declared as she pulled his elastic band out and secured the end of her braid with it.

"Shego..." Drakken whined quietly.

"Okay, now your hair," she said, making a spinning motion with her index finger. She saw the pout on his face as he obediently turned around.

"How are you going to tie my braid then?"

Shego smirked, and a second later a small huff of laughter escaped her lips. The ridiculousness of the question paired with his whining made the circumstance suddenly comical. Never in her life would she have pictured the two of them doing each other's hair.

"What?" Drakken whined.

"Nothing," she said as she began to French-braid his hair, much more rapidly than she had done hers. She tried to think of something to tie his back when she finished.

"Is this going to look girly?" Drakken complained.

"If it does, there's no one here. I think a palm leaf will work to tie it back. Your hair's a lot thinner..."

"Thanks," Drakken said sarcastically, and Shego felt rather than saw his eye-roll.

"It's better than getting knots," she said. "Okay, hold onto this while I get a leaf."

Drakken reached back and pinched the end of the braid while she pulled a very green palm leaf off of a frond. The edges were sharp and she was concerned about them cutting her fingers, but she didn't think they would hurt his hair. She tied his braid back, and then shifted to the side to take in the full picture. Since he usually had his hair pulled back from his face it wasn't too different, but the way he was pouting through his two-month beard made her smirk.

"Laugh it up..." he muttered.

"Come on," Shego said, standing up and pausing a moment as she felt a bit dizzy. "I'm sick of sitting. Let's go for a walk."

"Walk where..." Drakken grumbled, but he stood up next to her.

She didn't answer as she started for the beach. The sound of the surf was actually nice, she thought, as she glanced up at the first stars coming out. If she didn't think about the vague smokey smell that had overtaken the island or the fact that they were trapped on less than two acres of deserted land...she could almost imagine it was a nice evening.

Drakken followed her out onto the flat, white sands. Once out from under the cover of the trees she tilted her head back to look up at the stars through the remnants of the smoke. As she stared at the patterns that had become familiar she felt Drakken step up next to her.

"Okay, so that one...what did you call it?" she asked as she pointed to the constellation shaped like the letter 'W.'

"Cassiopeia," Drakken filled in.

"Right. That means north is that way," she said with a measure of confidence, but she still looked at Drakken for confirmation. Learning about the stars was still not something she was very keen on.

"We came in from the west...and the smoke is blowing south-east..." Drakken said, more to himself than to her. She could see by the furrowing of his brow that he was still trying to work out where they were.

She watched for nearly three minutes as he fell silent and his mind worked. She knew he was thinking also of the likelihood of rescue given the various possible places they could be.

"Dr. D.?"

He was so lost in thought, he didn't hear her. She lightly bit her lip, and after a moment she slipped her hand into his. That startled him out of his thoughts and he looked at her in surprise. She tugged lightly on his hand and they began a slow walk around the perimeter of the beach.

"So where are we?" she asked after another minute of silence.

"With the weather we've been having, it still seems like we're near the equator. But the dates suggest we're closer to north Africa. Or Spain. Are dates cultivated anywhere below the equator? Namibia?"

"Like I know," she muttered. "Couldn't the seeds have just been brought here by birds?"

She noted the worried twist in Drakken's brow before he made a sound of acknowledgement, followed by a small sigh.

Their walk brought them around to the side of the beach with their fire, which they had allowed to burn out when the sun began to set. The smoke still drifted up and over the tree tops from the heat of the burned palms. The air at the edge of the water was still clear, and after a few moments of thought they stepped into the edge of the surf and continued around past the smoke signal.

The letters they had spelled out had turned to ash, and Shego wondered if they were too faint to be seen from the sky. The smoke could be seen from anywhere at least...as long as they were close to somewhere.

"So...you do think we're near a larger island, or mainland?" she asked after a minute.

"Yes. Those birds couldn't get here otherwise. The wind helped of course, but they wouldn't have survived if it was too far away."

Shego grimaced slightly. "Maybe we can eat some eggs..."

Drakken looked at her with a mildly disgusted look. In truth, Shego felt the same. But she shrugged. "It's variety."

She watched as Drakken chewed the inside of his cheek. "I could live without eating anymore jellyfish."

Shego tensed somewhat at the memory. That, had indeed been awful.

"This...this isn't so bad, really," Drakken said. Shego looked at the clearing of his face, and considered the way his hand warmly held hers. Her eyes narrowed.

"Are you saying you're not in a hurry to be rescued?"

Drakken stopped walking to look at her, the accusation in her voice clear.

"No. It's just...better than the boat," he said.

Their walk had brought them up to the boat, and the faint odor of rotting fish reached their nostrils. Shego realized they had never gotten rid of the fish she had caught right before they found the island. She grimaced and debated between burning it right then or waiting until the next day.

"Maybe we should make a bigger fire tomorrow..." Drakken mused.

Silence fell for the rest of their walk as Shego wondered if they truly were near enough for their fire to be seen. It was pretty small, all things considered. But if they burned the actual trees, the smoke signal would be much larger... But then if they still weren't rescued...they would have destroyed their only shade and best nutritional source with the dates.

The familiar hopelessness started to clutch at her heart again, and after a moment Drakken stopped walking and looked at her curiously. She realized she had begun holding his hand tighter.

"...Why did you want to kiss me?" she asked, only to take his focus off of her returning depression.

Drakken looked away, and after a moment his hand left hers. Shego felt...a twinge of sadness at the loss of contact. She wondered at that.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said. But he didn't walk away.

"I'll just keep asking..." Shego said quietly, similar to their earlier conversation.

Drakken crossed his arms and grunted and looked out toward the sea.

"...Why don't you walk away?"

Drakken narrowed his eyes slightly and turned back to study her. He seemed to be assessing her motives for asking, just as before.

"I told you," he said as he turned back to the sea, "I'd rather...deal with your pestering than be alone with my thoughts."

Shego followed his gaze. But the view into the dark horizon only fueled her hopelessness, the roll of the waves at night seeming menacing despite the beauty of the stars above. It made her feel trapped, just as she'd felt on the boat whenever she looked at the water.

She impulsively grabbed Drakken's hand and started pulling him back inland, toward their tree with the dates and where they'd lain the rest of their clothing.

"What's wrong with your thoughts?" she asked almost absently, her own starting to crush her as she hurried away from the beach.

Drakken didn't answer until they were back at the tree and Shego had let go of his hand. She was staring at the neat stacks of their clothing and the massive cluster of dates, but then his voice drew her gaze.

"Probably...some of the same things that are wrong with yours," he said.

Her brow rose. "You... You mean...you think about giving up?"

Something about that idea horrified her. A familiar desire to protect him swirled in her mind, as it had a month ago after he declared his love for her. But there was also something about it that scared her. She realized that as long as he was willing to try...she was too. But if he gave up...

"No. Not...not in the way you think about."

Shego blinked as the discomforting pain in her chest grew.

"Then how?"

Drakken frowned. "Never-mind. Let's get some sleep."

Shego recognized his attempt to put her off. He got down to his knees, and then after a moment he grabbed his lab coat and spread it out on the grass with the lining facing up.

"Here," he said looking up at her. "You can sleep on this."

Shego took a deep breath in through her nostrils and let it out slowly. He was infuriating. And yet she didn't dare walk away from him.

"It's big enough for two," she said as she knelt down.

Drakken frowned. "No it's not."

"Sure it is," she said blandly, pushing him down with a hand on his shoulder before actually laying down herself.

Drakken looked nervous, as laying on the lab coat put them very close together. She thought again how it wasn't unlike the boat at all. The only difference was that now they had the choice to be together, or not.

And the thought of being away from him caused her head to swim.

"Drakken..."

His nervous, worried eyes met hers.

"Why did you want to kiss me?"

He pinched his eyes shut and his next breath sounded in a hiss.

"Shego... Please, just...pretend it never happened."

Her heart began pounding. This was her chance... And since he seemed intent on putting her off, it might be her only chance. She felt her mouth go dry as her lips parted in speech.

"What if...I don't want to?"

Drakken's eyes flew open. They fixed intently on hers, studying and questioning. And distrusting. She didn't blame him. Most of their seventy-two days in the boat had been spent fighting. And she had been very blunt with him the day before.

"You interrupted me yesterday..." she said slowly, trying to calm her racing heart.

"What?" Drakken asked quietly, his brow twisting.

"On the boat...before the shark came. You interrupted me. I'm sorry...I don't love you. But..."

She took in an unsteady breath and realized Drakken was holding his.

"But that doesn't mean...I couldn't love you, someday."

She felt a massive weight lift from her chest with the admission. A small light had entered Drakken's eyes, though he still looked wary. Shego set a hand on his chest and impulsively pushed him down to his back. He gasped and stared up at her anxiously as she leaned over him and brought her face to within a breath of his.

This time, it was she who initiated the contact. And when she closed her eyes and brought her lips softly against his she was again spirited away to that other world. The island didn't matter, and the sea didn't matter. Only that touch, which carried her far away from the sad, hopeless reality they were facing.

Again she was the one to press for a deeper action beyond the simple touch. But after her lips pulled at his gently he responded by gliding his over hers. She was shocked when the soft warmth of his tongue pressed gently against her upper lip, and she felt a rush of adrenaline as she parted her lips to let him take a stronger lead.

Sensations she hadn't felt in ages began awakening throughout her body, and she felt a growing heat and desire that demanded to be fulfilled. As her tongue met his in the strengthening kiss she grabbed his hand and set it on her waist. She slowly began pushing his hand higher, their fingers dragging her tank top up as she forced the movement, until she had placed his hand against her breast.

And suddenly the moment was broken.

"No!" Drakken cried as his lips left hers and he pushed her off of him.

Shego blinked at him in shock through the growing darkness, taking in his terrified expression.

"No?" she questioned in disbelief as her eyes narrowed. "Why the heck not?"

Drakken had sat up on his knees, and she mirrored his pose. She noted his hands hovering frozen in the air between them. His breathing was heavy and the fear in his eyes was rapidly turning to sadness.

He shook his head as he almost pleaded with her. "Because I love you... I can't use you like that."

She pursed her lips and fought against the tears that were suddenly forming in her eyes. "What if I want to be used right now?" she challenged angrily.

Drakken shook his head firmly, but the pleading was still in his eyes. "No. You're...you're so much more valuable than that, Shego."

Shego snarled as her hands blazed, the green light and shadows only emphasizing the anger on her face. She stumbled to her feet and took a domineering stance over him.

"Then tell me," she growled through clenched teeth. "Why did you want to kiss me?"

Pain filled Drakken's eyes then. He looked down in defeat.

"Because... Because you didn't mean what you just said..." he murmured.

"What?"

"Because...you're not going to fall in love with me someday... And as soon as we get back...you're going to leave again."

Shego's eyes narrowed further as confusion tore across her mind. Her lips parted to ask what he meant, but then he continued.

"I just...wanted to know what heaven felt like, while I had the chance."

Shego pursed her lips and then scoffed in disgust. "Don't get stupid and poetic. What are you trying to prove," she stated rather than asked as she turned on her heel and stomped angrily through the sandy grass toward the beach.

Her direction led her to the narrower, rocky part of beach where she had washed their clothes earlier. She paced back and forth as she thought about everything that had just transpired in the last two minutes, from her admission of potential feelings to his assured declaration that she would leave after they were rescued.

_'Leave? What does that even mean? What did he mean, 'again'?_

She put aside the more difficult question in favor of anger at herself for thinking she could forget about being lost with no hope of rescue with a little casual intimacy. What had she been thinking? It was Drakken after all, of course he wouldn't go for that... He wasn't like normal men. And then his pitiful admission that the kiss had been nothing but a selfish act...

Her pacing stopped as she remembered, when they had pulled the boat onto the beach he had been crying and said those exact words: he was being selfish.

With a heavy sigh she sat down in the sand to face the waters and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.

A numbing feeling started to settle over her chest. Her mind drifted off of her embarrassment and anger back to the warmth of his lips, and the very brief touch of his hand.

She wanted to feel that touch again. But why? She had thought she was being honest with him... She truly thought...she might be able to have feelings for him. But was it all in her mind, because they were trapped and she needed a distraction? Like he believed. Was she just imagining the things she thought she was starting to feel?

Slow footsteps behind her caused her to straighten up, though she didn't turn to look at him.

"Thought you didn't want to be with me," she said, feeling her chest suddenly constrict with pain.

"...It's still worse to be alone with my thoughts," he said quietly.

"Got that right."

After a moment, he sat down next to her and slightly behind her, and unusually close for what had just occurred; she could feel the warmth of his presence.

She sighed heavily through her nose. Embarrassment still coursed through her, but so did far too many questions. She wasn't even sure which to ask first. As she listened to the surf, she let go of the tension in her mind and just let words fall from her lips.

"Why don't you believe me?"

"About what?" Drakken asked cautiously.

"That I could love you someday," she said, surprised to find her voice shaking.

"Because I know that's not how you feel," he said plainly, as if it was obvious.

She glanced back at him. "How do you know how I feel?" The question was genuine; he seemed so sure.

He blinked at her. Something in his expression had become very guarded.

"You already told me how you feel."

Shego's brow furrowed as she thought. All she could remember was his interrupting her in the boat, when she'd been about to tell him that there could be something between them someday.

"When?"

She watched Drakken take a deep breath and look past her toward the dark sea.

"'You are the most senseless person I've ever met,'" Drakken began quoting. Shego's mind flew instantly back to the furious rant she had leveled against him, only thirty days into their being lost at sea...

_"You're even worse than my brothers. I have never seen anyone make so many stupid decisions without thinking them through. It's like you're so desperate for anything to work that you just strike out blindly and hope to hit the mark. And it's always blind because you don't actually have any real skills to work with. You never build your own stuff, you always have me or the henchmen do the work for you, and when you do try to build your own stuff it's always a disaster. Moon laser. Giant magnet. Destructo-bots. Go ahead Drakken, name one thing you've built that actually worked. Go ahead! And you know what? Your plans aren't even that evil. Your most evil plan wasn't even yours, it belonged to a space alien. And you did even less than usual that time, that one was all her! You're not about evil at all and you're not a real villain, you're just an egomaniac. You're nothing but a college dropout who never got over being teased for being such a mega-nerd. You shouldn't be trying to take over the world, you should be writing a blog. Get your stupid...nineteen-year-old revenge by publishing who slept with whose girlfriend, or something like that. But you're not even smart enough to think of something that easy! And then you take us out on a boat without checking the weather, and without any sort of back-up or even a radio or cell phone in case something goes wrong. How stupid can you be? I have never been so surrounded by so much stupid as when I'm in the same room with you. Ugh, I can't believe I've spent almost four years of my life waiting for you to actually do something that you're never going to be able to do. I don't know what's worse, being stuck with you on this boat or four years of absolutely nothing."_

Drakken finished quoting her rant word-for-word and then fell silent. He had even remembered her inflections.

Shego remembered... He hadn't spoken to her for ages after that. He'd made eye contact frequently, but his looks were always filled with contempt. And also, she now realized...with hurt.

She had been so angry over being lost, she had leveled every mean thing at him that she could think of in the moment. And all the while...he was in love with her.

She blinked as she wondered how on earth he had then lasted over forty days with her...still being civil to her. Had their positions been reversed, she might have tried to feed him to the sharks... But more than just being civil, he had talked her off the ledge of despair. And he hadn't fallen out of love with her either. She had done everything shy of saying she hated him, and he...

...Proved he wasn't very evil after all, just as she thought.

If circumstances were different, she could have been amused.

She took a deep breath. Drakken spoke before she could.

"I don't want your pity, Shego. And I understand why you left, now. It's...it's all right."

She suddenly understood that he was referring to after their time in prison. When she hadn't broken him out, twice, and then hadn't gone back for him once she was free. She had only gone back to see just who he thought could replace her. And after setting that situation to rights, she had left again. She had only finally returned to work for him after getting bored...

"Drakken..."

She was surprised suddenly as his arms wrapped around her shoulders from behind and pulled her back against his chest. His face hovered near to hers, and slightly above. She tilted her head back to see him as his arms tightened around her. The starlight revealed a telltale glistening in his eyes.

Her lips trembled as she leaned up and placed a kiss on his cheek, the hair of his beard scratching her lips.

He leaned away from her touch.

* * *

They sat on the beach for what felt like forever. Shego had leaned her head back against his shoulder and stared at the purple arc of the Milky Way above, watching its seeming passage through the sky as the Earth rotated. Since she felt such disdain for the stars, she had never noticed how many colors there truly were. The claim couldn't even be made that most were white, as reds and blues, greens and oranges, and everything in between dotted the sky like tiny daggers piercing the dark blanket that seemed to surround their small planet.

Shego felt very small watching the stars, and somehow her thoughts about giving up and her worries over the pointlessness of life were less crushing. In a universe so vast...and in a universe that had for some reason chosen her to give super comet powers... There had to be more.

She wondered at Drakken's embracing her, but she didn't question it or try to get out of it. Occasionally she heard him sniffle, and twice she felt the tremor of his frame as he cried. But he didn't say another word, and neither did she. It wasn't until she had yawned for the third time that she turned her face up toward his again. They were so close that her cheek brushed the hair of his beard as she moved.

His eyes were turned toward the stars, as hers had been. And his cheeks were moist with tear tracks.

"I'm tired," she said quietly.

He didn't look at her as he finally and slowly loosened his grip around her shoulders. He stood wordlessly and waited until she was by his side, and then they walked back through the trees to their chosen place to sleep.

Shego knelt down on Drakken's lab coat and he knelt down next to it in the grass.

"There's still room for two," she said.

She watched him blink, and then move over to join her in the small space. He didn't look at her.

She watched him as he settled on his side and looked away over her head, his expression unreadable. She kept her eyes on his face as she found his hand and held it as she had done the past several nights, but his features remained unchanged even when she slightly squeezed his hand. His eyes still glistened with tears.

Shego felt her chest constrict and she took a shuddering breath as she closed her eyes and set her head beneath his chin against his chest.

His hand remained limp in hers.

* * *

When Shego woke the next morning the sun was already high. And Drakken wasn't with her.

She sat up with a start, looking around frantically for the missing blue man. And then a familiar roar caught her ear.

She stood up and ran toward the beach where they'd had their signal fire and found Drakken there, throwing an armful of palm fronds onto a large bonfire he had built. He'd taken off his tank top and had it wrapped around his face like a mask so he could breathe through the smoke, and she saw that his skin was already darkened in patches with soot-stained sweat.

The smoke was rising much higher from this fire, and she wondered what had made Drakken think of it. She also wondered how he had started the fire. Perhaps there had still been a hot coal left over from the day before, or maybe he had actual wilderness skills she didn't know about. In any case, she could see from the squint of his eyes and from how much soot stained his sweat that he had been working for quite awhile.

"Drakken!" she shouted above the flames, and waved her arms when he began peering around through the smoke.

He spotted her and seemed to hesitate, and then walked toward her.

When he reached the tree line he unwrapped his tank top and wiped his face with it, staining it with soot. Shego had a brief flash of annoyance since she had just washed it the day before, but that thought vanished in light of the more pressing matter.

"Are you crazy? You could asphyxiate out there!" she scolded him.

An unreadable look flashed through his eyes then that caused a deep worry to settle in the pit of her stomach. She shook it off as she grabbed his arm and dragged him further away from the beach. His arm was hot to the touch.

"You're filthy. Get cleaned up, and I'll get breakfast. Do you want dates, or fish? Or should I look for some eggs?"

Drakken coughed a few times and wiped his face again, sweat pooling on his forehead almost as quickly as he wiped it off.

"Surprise me," he said, and turned to head away to a different beach.

Shego blinked after him, and then she realized two things. First, that that was the first time he'd spoken since reciting her rant from the night before. And second, that he still wasn't making eye contact with her.

The worrying feeling that had arisen in her stomach grew. She tried to shake it off as she looked around and considered breakfast. They never had examined the other palm trees...

She squinted up at them and thought she saw something other than leaves growing near the top. After a minute of studying what she thought could be a fruit, she shrugged and fired her glow up toward the top. She saw something shake where her glow had struck, but nothing fell. And it still wasn't clear what she was looking at.

She scowled and after another long moment of thought, began climbing up the tall, skinny palm. If there was food up there...particularly coconuts...it would be worth it.

She got about halfway up when it became clear—she was definitely seeing coconuts. They didn't look completely ripe, but they were pretty close. She held onto the tree trunk tightly with her legs and right arm, and then began firing her glow with her left.

When several of the fruits had fallen she felt satisfied and carefully began shimmying down. The sudden appearance of a stick-bug when she neared the ground startled her, and she scraped the inside of her elbow as she let go and dropped the last ten feet to the sandy grass.

"Ow..." she muttered, looking at the bleeding scrape. It wasn't bad. But it would sting and be annoying, especially when she bathed.

She gathered up the seven coconuts that had fallen and made her way back to the tree where they had slept. She piled them there and then headed off in the direction Drakken had gone.

It took no thought at all to decide...she needed to apologize to him. At the time of her angry rant, she had meant every word. Just as she had in every other argument they'd had while in the boat. But, she could still say sorry. And she _was_ sorry that he had been hurt.

Especially since...she was becoming increasingly more aware that she really liked being near him, and holding his hand. If the circumstances the night before had been different, having his arms around her as they stargazed on the beach would have been...very nice.

She was also disappointed that he had ended her attempt at deeper passions before. Though that had probably been for the best, all things considered. Since he'd clearly been living with the idea that she couldn't stand being with him for well over a month now, she didn't want to know what deeper hurts might have occurred had things been allowed to go further.

She reached the tree line and the beach just as Drakken was starting to step out of the water. His eyes lifted from the waves and met hers. She whirled around in a hurry and froze, not daring to move until he had gotten dressed and approached her himself. She wanted him to feel confident that she hadn't seen anything, and that she wasn't there for any reason other than to get him for breakfast.

She found herself breathing heavier than usual as she waited, but a few minutes later Drakken stepped up next to her. She glanced down first at his bare-but-sandy feet and followed the line of his bare legs up to his dark boxers, and then up to his wet, bare chest. He had his pants folded over his arm and his wet tank-top—a bit less sooty, as he'd obviously attempted to wash it—in his hand. When her eyes met his she saw the unspoken and very nervous question there.

"I didn't see anything," she said quickly. He seemed to accept her answer immediately, and his eyes left hers. He blushed. She cleared her throat. "I came to tell you...I found coconuts."

He looked back at her with his brow raised. "Coconuts?"

She felt the worry in her stomach start to diminish. He had actually looked at her, and he looked more like himself.

"Yeah."

Drakken's brow furrowed. "Where are we..."

He started back to their tree, and she hurried to walk at his side. When they reached the spot his eyes widened eagerly at the sight of the large fruits she had found, and he dropped both articles of clothing he carried atop his lab coat to eagerly reach for one of them.

"Hey, this has to dry..." Shego complained lightly, picking up his tank top and tossing it up to hang over a branch. She nudged his folded pants aside, but then after a moment of thought she sat down in the grass to give him full access to the more-comfortable lab coat, since she was wearing pants and he wasn't.

He sat down and examined a coconut with a frown, and then looked to her with a questioning brow.

She reached out her hand for the fruit, and he gave it to her wordlessly. She looked at the three little 'eyes' of the nut, and then with precise focus she burned a hole through one of them with her glow. When a slight splash sound emerged from the tiny hole, she handed the fruit back to him and got one of her own. She watched him drink the coconut milk eagerly, all in one go without taking a breath.

"Careful..." she warned.

He looked like he was about to say something, but then he frowned and shook his head. He picked up another coconut.

"Can you do another one?"

Shego was still working on her own. She finished that one and held it out to him, and they traded. She watched him drink the second one the same way, and then he held both of the fruits emptied of liquid in his hands and looked between them curiously.

She finished opening the third one and finally drank. The coconut milk was sweet and almost clear as she drank it, and she wondered if that was a consequence of the fruits being slightly under-ripe.  
Drakken looked at her and opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

"Hold on, I need another one too."

She repeated the process a fourth time and gratefully drank the liquid down. She looked at the remaining three coconuts and quickly decided...those would be for lunch that day.

"Okay. Wait, let me think about this..."

She studied the coconuts in her hands and tried to figure the best way to open them without destroying the white edible fruit inside. She finally settled on slowly burning through the shell around the circumference. When it was thin enough, she was able to pry some of it back and get at the white meat with her fingers. And from there she tore the fruit apart.

"Okay...do you want this one?" she asked Drakken as she licked her fingers.

When his eyes met hers he suddenly looked wary. She felt the worry return to her stomach as he quickly nodded and averted his eyes.

She handed him the coconut and started on a second one. When she was through that shell, she handed it to Drakken without tearing into the meat; he could do that himself. And then she did the other two for herself.

"Thank you, Shego," Drakken said quietly. She looked up as she was about to take her first bite and saw him looking troubled as he stared down at the coconut in his hands. "I couldn't have survived this long without you."

Her gut response was to agree with him. Because it was very likely true. But given the circumstances, she decided against it.

"You don't have to thank me," was what she finally chose to say.

"Of course I do," Drakken said with a frown as he bit into the fruit. "You have...no reason to save me along with you."

Shego set her coconut down. "Dr. D. Don't do this. I'm sorry, okay?"

He wasn't looking at her. She moved closer to him, and when he still didn't look up she set her hand on his bare knee. He gasped and jumped slightly as he met her eyes.

"I'm sorry for everything I said before. I was just so mad that we were stuck out there."

Drakken looked down. His eyes darted up to hers again briefly before he focused intently on his coconut. Shego waited as he chewed another bite, and then finally took one herself as she was too hungry and eager for the tasty and healthful food.

"I understand," Drakken finally said without looking up.

Shego's brow furrowed. Was that understanding as in...he forgave her? Or that he understood why she was upset? Or was he just acknowledging the fact that she had apologized?

"Dr. D.—"

"How did that happen?"

Shego followed his alarmed gaze to the inside of her elbow, where the scrape she had sustained had bled into one large, red mass. the leg of her pants was stained red where she had been resting her elbow, and as she lifted the arm up she could see that the blood was slowly dripping down.

"Oh... Scraped it while I was getting the coconuts. It's nothing," she said.

Drakken's hand on her elbow startled her then, and she looked curiously at his darkened brow as he stared worriedly at the slightly injury. She also noticed how gently his hand held her elbow.

"It doesn't look like nothing," he countered.

"Well, it is," she said plainly, slowly pulling her elbow out of his grasp.

He opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted. A sudden distinctly unnatural sound reached their ears. It sounded like a voice on a megaphone, from a long ways off.

They looked at each other, and then dropped the coconuts and ran for the beach with the fire. Shego raised her arm to shield her eyes from the smoke, and she heard a small cry leave Drakken's lips as he saw what she did.

There was a boat out in the water, a good hundred yards from the island. But it was still out there. And she could see three moving figures on the deck looking their way.

A sound like a voice through a megaphone sounded again, though they couldn't make out any words. Shego began waving wildly with both arms and Drakken followed suit.

"We're here!" she shouted as loud as she could, and Drakken repeated her words a second later.

The voice on the megaphone said something else unintelligible as they continued to wave. Two of the three figures waved back to them. Shego's heart leapt in her chest.

"I think...their boat can't come in closer," Drakken said after a few moments.

"Oh..." Shego said, remembering the shallows they had drifted through with their tiny boat. "Um...you...get some palm branches to use as paddles. And I'll go get our stuff."

As Shego turned to run back to their tree, she caught a glimpse of Drakken's face that surprised her. He looked desperately anxious and almost sad. It wasn't as bad as the night before, but it was almost enough to make her stop and ask him if he was okay.

Almost. They were getting rescued!

She ran back through the trees and after quickly assessing everything, she threw all of the clothes into Drakken's lab coat and gathered them up in a bundle. She caught sight of her almost-forgotten sports bra as she worked, and then quickly put it on and then replaced her tank top over it. It was one thing to not wear it around Drakken, who she knew respected her too much to look... Others, she couldn't trust.

After a moment of thought she stuffed the unopened coconuts into the lab coat with their other clothes, and then added the large date cluster and already-opened coconuts to the top of the pile. Just in case their rescuers turned out to be unfriendly...and they had to exile them to the tiny island and commandeer the boat... They would have some food to start, at least, since they still didn't know where they were.

She hurried back to the beach with her heavy load, and found Drakken dragging their small boat toward the water's edge with four massive palm fronds sat inside. She grinned as she hurried through the smoke and into the shallows to meet him.

"Seventy-four days..." she said as she set everything down.

A rancid smell suddenly assaulted her senses, and she remembered again the fish they had never eaten. It was still sitting in the bow. With a grimace of disgust, she grabbed it and tossed it overboard, and then lightly burned the spot it had sat with her glow.

She was about to step into the boat when she realized Drakken was just standing in the water up to his ankles, staring at her. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"What are you waiting for?"

He seemed to shake himself and his expression cleared. But only somewhat. Shego felt the worry swirl deeper in her stomach as together they pushed their boat away from the island and out into the open ocean. They hopped in once they had reached deeper water, and each holding two palm fronds to get more surface area, they began to paddle toward the boat that was anchored and waiting for them. It wasn't very efficient, but it was better than paddling by hand.

Shego sat ahead of Drakken in the boat and set a hurried pace as she stared at what would be their salvation. It was clearly a fishing boat, small with a single deck, but with a cabin for the steering. It was large enough that she imagined it had storage spaces below the deck, and there were three telltale fishing rods sticking up near the bow.

"So do you wanna take bets on where we are?" Shego said, tossing a brief grin over her shoulder. "I think we were on the right track with somewhere in Africa."

As they got nearer and nearer the boat, she was able to make out that the occupants were three men of medium-brown skin color. Two of them appeared to have the typical tight black curls of hair that native Africans had, but the other man appeared to have straighter hair.

She also noticed a flag flying from the back of the ship. It was mostly green, with red bars at the top and bottom, and what looked like an upward-facing gold crescent and star in the middle of the green field. She didn't recognize it.

"Maybe Morocco?" Shego called back to Drakken again.

Her heart was beginning to race with excitement. All of her previous thoughts of hopelessness were leaving. They had survived. And they had survived well, all things considered. And soon enough, they would be back to civilization and could get on a plane for home.

 _'Home...'_ The lair in the Caribbean. That was home.

Shego paused in her paddling to turn back as she realized Drakken hadn't responded to her speculations. When she saw his face it was troubled and down-turned.

"Drakken?"

He startled out of his thoughts and looked up at her as he paddled with more vigor.

"Maybe Morocco," he said.

Her brow furrowed. He seemed like he was hiding something from her. The worry returned to the pit of her stomach.

"What are you—"

The voice on the megaphone sounded again, and Shego turned back to the boat that would rescue them. It was clear now that the language the men were speaking wasn't English. She glanced back at Drakken again, who was studying the boat with curiosity and caution.

"Do you speak English?" he shouted up to the men.

Shego watched as the three exchanged looks. They then said something else in the megaphone, just as unintelligible.

"Guess not," Shego said to Drakken.

They paddled the rest of the way to the back of the boat where it would be easiest to climb aboard. When they reached it, two of the men reached down to help Shego up. She accepted their aid and then watched as the third man tied their small, useless boat onto their larger one. She reached down as Drakken started handing up their belongings, and one of the men said something in his language that Shego understood meant she was to move aside while the men carried their things.

She climbed all the way up onto the boat and watched as their clothing and food was deposited on the deck, and then Drakken hurried to her side as the three men also moved to stand together. Shego noted then that the men were regarding them a bit nervously.

"Maybe our reputation precedes us?" Drakken suggested to her after a minute.

"Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe they've never seen blue and green people before," Shego said.

Looking at the men more closely showed her initial assessment had been right. While the three men shared an almost identical medium-brown skin tone, one had very straight black hair while the other two had tight and short curls. They were all wearing off-white pants, shirts, and tennis shoes, and the scent on the boat plus the fishing rods gave away their profession.

One of the men spoke, but it wasn't a language Shego even recognized.

"Do you speak English?" Drakken asked again.

One of the men shook his head no. Shego wondered if he'd understood, or was just indicating that he didn't understand them.

The man said something else, but Shego still didn't even have the first idea what language it was.

"Thank you," she said a moment later, trying to smile in a way that looked grateful.

One of the men began talking then, gesturing to the island and then away to the northwest out over the ocean. Shego wondered if he was explaining where they were.

She heard motion at her shoulder and turned to see Drakken stepping into his pants. She grimaced at the light flush on his face and wished she'd given him the chance to dress before they paddled out. He put his damp tank top on next and stopped there.

Shego looked back to their rescuers, who were still watching them uneasily.

"Thank you," Shego repeated. "Can you take us to land?" She pointed in the northwest direction the man had, and then one of them seemed to acknowledge her while another began talking to the first.

One of the men then moved to secure the fishing rods, while the second went into the cabin and started the boat's motor. The third hauled up the anchor, and then a minute later the boat began moving at a fast clip across the sparkling waves toward the northwest.

Shego couldn't help herself but to grin, and looked over her shoulder at Drakken. Then she frowned. His expression, while curious and calculating, was still anxious and troubled.

"Drakken?"

He blinked and looked at her, but she thought his eyes seemed to look over her head rather than right at her. Her brow furrowed lightly, and she reached down to where his lab coat still lay with their boots, her jacket and his shirt, and her gloves. She picked up two of the opened coconuts.

"Want some coconut?" she asked, smiling as she offered him one.

His eyes finally met hers, and he returned her smile. But there was still something dark and world-weary behind the peaceful look he gave her. The worry in Shego's stomach grew worse than ever, but she had no idea what to make of it. He was probably just tired from all of the smoke and heat from building the fire...

Drakken accepted the offered coconut and took a bite, and after a minute Shego turned her face back into the salty breeze as the boat sailed over the waves, the roar of the motor mixing with the splash of the waters against the hull. For a boat as small as that one, she knew it couldn't travel very far. Which meant that civilization was near. They could be safe in mere minutes, and heading home.

Home, she realized again, was the lair. She wondered when exactly she had started thinking of it that way in the past several years. But despite having been lost from there, she wanted nothing more than to see the ridiculous volcanic plug again with its buildings built on the top and the useless shark tank inside and its too many winding corridors. She wanted her own shower, and her own bed to sleep in.

She was about to turn and ask Drakken what he was most looking forward to when they got back, but then another painful memory of the night before hit her. Drakken's explanation of his reason for kissing her...had been that he wanted to do so while he had the chance. He expected her to leave again when they got back, as she had done after prison... And after the horrible things she had said in the boat, it was a logical leap.

Her chest ached. He hadn't seemed to accept her apology back on the island. And he had every right to not forgive her of course, but she needed him to understand at least that she had no intention of leaving him.

"Drakken?" she said cautiously as she turned around.

Her eyes widened. He wasn't behind her.

"Drakken!?" she said, turning in a frantic circle and looking over the deck of the small boat and inside the cabin. He wasn't anywhere. "Stop! Stop!" she screeched.

The three men fairly jumped in shock at her outburst, and the one driving brought the boat to a stop as the other two noticed that one of their passengers was missing. They began talking at once as they did as Shego was doing, looking around the deck and then back over the open ocean.

Shego fixed her eyes on the island that was quickly vanishing from sight but for the towering smoke signal, and scanned the water in between the island and the boat. A tiny speck of black briefly caught her eye.

"There! There, go back!" she almost shouted as one of the men moved to her side to peer out over the sea with her.

He said something to the man driving, who looked confused and annoyed as he began rambling something and turned the boat around. She ran to the bow, her eyes never leaving the speck she saw, and the man who was watching with her stayed at her side.

"Hurry!" Shego said.

The man at her side looked at her and asked a question with a raised brow. Shego studied him as she tried to comprehend his possible meaning. He looked bewildered, astonished, and worried.

Shego knew her face was likely a match to his, but with the added emotion of panic. How had Drakken ended up in the water? There hadn't been any bumps. Why hadn't she heard him call out?

As the boat roared back the way it had come she could make out that the black speck she saw was indeed Drakken's hair. But it was vanishing between the waves every few seconds, and the time he remained submerged was lasting longer each time.

"Drakken!" she shouted when she knew they were close enough for him to hear.

She could see the blue of his face now, looking toward the boat. His head disappeared beneath the waves again. The boat began to slow as it neared him, and Shego knew it was so as to not accidentally hit him and injure him.

One of the men was bringing a life preserver on a rope up next to the boat's railing, but Shego couldn't wait when she saw Drakken's head disappear again. She hopped up on the railing, and less than a second later had dove into the water, the voices of the men on the boat complaining behind her.

"Shego!" she heard Drakken call, but his tone wasn't that of calling for help. He sounded...annoyed.

She quickly swam over the rolling waves to his side, and she peripherally saw the life preserver fly towards them. When she reached him he saw that he was in fact, annoyed. And as she grabbed his arm he tried to push her off.

"Leave me be!" he said, pushing away from her.

Shego's brow shot up.

"Did you jump in on purpose!?" she yelled at him, getting some saltwater in her mouth in the process.

She fought to hold onto his bicep and move toward the life preserver as he kept trying to push her off.

"Shego, stop. This is better," Drakken sputtered, his tone eerily calm.

Anger burned in her. Beneath the water, she ignited her hand on his arm and he yelped in pain. She glared at him and he met the look with his own anger, finally and truly looking back at her for the first time since the previous night. He stopped fighting her as she moved toward the life preserver and he let her drag him to it.

The men on the boat were calling out to them in what sounded like words of encouragement as they were dragged back to the boat. Shego made them pull Drakken up first, and then she allowed one of the men to help her with a hand on her arm. She watched as a folding deck chair appeared and Drakken was ushered to sit down in it.

The three men continued talking as they looked down at Drakken worriedly, seeming to check him for injury and at the same time express a mixture of fear and relief that he was all right.

Shego couldn't feel relieved yet. She was too angry. She pushed her heavy, water-laden braid over her shoulder as she cleared the short distance from the railing to where Drakken sat, and she bent over in front of him. The chatter of the men ceased suddenly as she slapped Drakken hard across the face.

"What is wrong with you!?" she screamed at him.

One of the men said something that sounded scolding, but Shego heard as he was pulled away by the other men. Drakken only looked down and away in irritation as the boat's motor was restarted and it turned back toward the northwest. Shego was aware that they were being watched, but it was the farthest thing from her mind in that moment.

Drakken had just tried to kill himself.

"You should have left me. It's better," he finally said.

"How could you being dead possibly be better!?" she shouted at him.

She realized that her heart was pounding and that her entire body was shaking from the fear of what had happened. She let herself down to the deck on her knees and grabbed his shoulders, digging her nails in to try to get him to look at her.

"You wouldn't have to choose," he said flatly.

"Choose? Choose what?" she said, her voice still coming out in anger.

She lifted a hand to push her dripping bangs out of her eyes, and then did the same for him since all he was doing was sitting limply in the chair.

"Between leaving like you want to, or...sticking around out of guilt or...or fake feelings."

Shego felt heat burn stronger in her veins and had to fight to keep her hands from igniting on his shoulders. There was far too much to unpack all at once in what he had just said. She chose the last thing to address first simply because it was last.

"What do you mean, fake feelings?" she snarled.

He finally brought his eyes up to meet hers. The look he gave her was full of sorrow and contempt.

"I mean...using me to distract yourself from your own issues. And actually...making me think for second that you don't hate me, and that there was even the smallest chance you might stick around."

Shego narrowed her eyes. "I don't hate you."

Drakken looked away and scoffed. "You made yourself very clear on the boat."

He tried to stand up to escape from her, but she held him down in the chair. It wasn't as if he had anywhere to escape to. Unless he was thinking of jumping overboard again.

"I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean..." She trailed off. She'd meant all of it at the time, it was true. She knew he would see through her if she lied to him. "I was just mad. Like you are now. But...but rash words and actions don't help anybody. They just hurt."

She glanced down guiltily as she thought again about how much Drakken must have been struggling for the past month and a half, being in love with her and thinking she couldn't stand being in the same space he was in. And he was right that she had wanted to distract herself from their situation...

But that couldn't be the reason for all of the confused feelings she had been having. Her desire to be with him, and how at peace she felt each time he held her hand... Her increasing need to be near him when they slept, and the memory of his lips kissing hers—not the night before, but in the boat when he had asked and had kissed her out of his own feelings.

It couldn't...just be her distracting herself, could it? Suddenly she wasn't sure.

She took a breath. "Drakken, I meant what I said last night. I...I could love you someday."

He looked back at her with sadness and distrust.

"Actually, I...I think I might already," she continued, her fingers pressing more firmly into his shoulders.

He shook his head and looked down. "You'll change your mind as soon as we're back at the lair, and everything goes back to normal. You'll see it's just...distraction from everything."

Shego shook her head. "But I—"

"You didn't start to care until after I told you I love you. You were mad at me until then. You were just...getting your mind off of being trapped out here. With me..." The last was added in a whisper so low that she almost didn't hear.

Shego pursed her lips. She was angry with him for being so stupid as to attempt suicide. She was angry with him for not believing her. And she was angry that he might still be right.

How _could_ she know her own mind, when she herself had struggled with wanting to give up on living? And he had a point... Until he had made his confession, she had just been angry over their situation. It wasn't until after that that their conversations had become deeper, and the arguments fewer.

Did she really only think she was interested, because he was?

It was all too much, with the dark look in his eyes revealing that he wasn't yet in his right mind. He might still try to jump off the boat, or who knew what else.

Shego blinked away the tears that came hot to her eyes as she tried to calm down from her anger.

"Just don't...don't do anything stupid," she muttered, digging her fingernails into his shoulders in warning. "We're finally going home."

"Home?" Drakken said, looking up sadly.

Shego met his eyes and nodded.

Drakken's brow furrowed as he blinked a few times in thought. "You can have the lair...and I'll leave."

"What? No!" she said in irritation.

Drakken leaned forward in the chair with a frown, surprising her. She faltered slightly on her knees but maintained her level gaze with him.

"I don't want to wait however many weeks or months it will take you to stop pretending to care before you finally go. So...I'll just go, and...get it over with..." he muttered, leaning back in the chair again.

Shego sank back to sit on her heels and dropped her hands to her lap. He seemed determined to get away from her...one way or another.

She glanced away from him to look at their three rescuers, who were watching them with expressions of disquiet. One of them was speaking lowly into a satellite phone. She wished she could give them some reassurance, but she genuinely wasn't sure that Drakken wouldn't try something again.

She pushed her wet bangs back again and turned her mind instead to how she could possibly convince him. He hadn't accepted her apology... Maybe if she apologized for every single thing? She thought back to the hurtful rant he had quoted to her the night before.

"Drakken, I'm sorry. You're not stupid, and...you're plenty evil, and you do have common sense, and..." She trailed off as something occurred to her. He had lifted his chin slightly to peer at her, and that alone gave her hope. "Drakken, if I don't care about you, then why would I have stayed with you for four years?"

She saw as the wheels in his mind began turning, albeit reluctantly.

"And if I don't care...why would I have come back at all? I could have gotten a lot more money working with the Seniors."

His expression clouded over as she realized she had successfully thrown doubt onto all of his assumptions. She hoped that this time he would believe her apology too. She rose up on her knees again and set her hands on his forearms where they were lain on the arms of the folding chair.

"What if it's not...my feelings that are the distraction? What if it's everything else, distracting me from how I really feel?"

The look in Drakken's eyes darkened then as he shook his head, not about to buy it.

"No, th-think about it," she said, moving closer to him. "What if...spending all that time in prison, feeling betrayed when you barely used me in your Li'l Diablos plot..."

Drakken's eyes widened. Shego continued.

"And then...when you replaced me with that other woman."

"Warmonga wasn't an 'other woman,'" Drakken argued.

"Sure she was. And then...getting lost at sea. Most people who are lost at sea die. And pretty quickly too. Maybe all of that was the distraction. And it's the way you make me feel that's real?"

She could see in his eyes that he was wavering. She slid her hands up his arms to rest on his shoulders.

"And you make me feel...like the smartest, strongest, most desirable woman in any room."

"You are," Drakken interrupted.

Shego felt a nervous flutter in her chest at his words. She moved forward until she'd put herself between his knees in front of the chair.

"And I like holding your hand, and sleeping near you... And I liked the way you held me last night, after I...after you thought I only wanted..."

Drakken cleared his throat uncomfortably and glanced away. Shego centered in on another question she knew he wouldn't want to answer.

"Why did you hold me like that?"

He glanced back at her. She was surprised to see him sigh in resignation and shift slightly to straighten up as he answered quietly.

"I just wanted to know what it would feel like... Since you'll leave when we get back..."

Shego thought to his pathetic explanation for the kiss the day before.

"Seeing what more of heaven felt like?"

Drakken blushed and looked away in embarrassment. Shego leaned forward and set her arms around him, feeling where his wet hair braid was dripping down his back. She freed it from where his shoulder had been pinning it and moved it over the back of the chair to drip on the deck of the boat instead.

"Maybe you just found your way to heaven first..." she said quietly, looking away as she felt her cheeks color. "And I needed your help to find my own way."

Drakken's eyes were narrowed in distrust as she looked at him, her face now only inches from his. But she saw buried deep behind his dark eyes the faint glimmer of hope that still hadn't died.

She stayed close to him, looking into his eyes and waiting. She couldn't force it... He would just doubt her more if she did.

A long, tense minute passed as she watched the war occur across his face. He even glanced away to the ship's railing once, but she didn't tense up. Everything would have to be on his terms.

Finally, suddenly, his face twisted in pain and he looked away.

"I can't..." he murmured weakly.

Shego frowned and closed the small gap between them, her lips meeting his in a fiery kiss. He tried to turn away from the touch, but she wouldn't let him, kissing him until she ran out of breath and was forced to pull away. She rested her forehead against his as she caught her breath.

"Stop, please," he begged quietly.

"You had your turn being selfish. If you won't have me...then I want to see what heaven feels like too."

She kissed him again, but he didn't turn away. It took several seconds, but finally he responded, his arms wrapping tightly around her as he kissed her with fervor. Shego felt heat race through her as she pressed herself as closely to him as possible. His inhibitions had either left or he was throwing caution to the wind as his hands tightly gripped her shoulders and his tongue teased hers between the ever-changing parting of their lips as they kissed.

The sound of cheers and claps of applause reached Shego's ears, and she opened her eye to peer sideways to where their three rescuers had been watching the drama unfold. They were now smiling and clapping their hands, and by all appearances very glad that things were working out for the pathetic pair they had picked up.

Shego broke out of the kiss self-consciously and set her forehead back against Drakken's. His cheeks colored as he too looked over at the three men who were watching them from the cabin, and then he set his lips to Shego's ear as he whispered nervously.

"My hair doesn't look girly, does it?"

* * *

After the boat had landed, they learned that they were in Mauritania. They also learned that the island they had landed on was privately-owned, and a few hours' time brought the news that the owner wasn't at all bothered by their burning some of the foliage for a signal fire.

They had given their rescuers a hefty cash reward, the money withdrawn from one of their bank accounts, and through a translator promised to be in touch if they ever came back to western Africa. But after enduring a necessary check by a physician, eating a hearty meal that they hadn't had to catch or forage for themselves, and luxuriating in a real shower in a hotel room, their main goal was just to go home.

They had plane tickets for late morning, and Shego was eager to prove to Drakken that all of his fears had been wrong.

He had let her shower first, and she was enjoying the smooth, clean feeling of her damp and freshly-conditioned hair as she waited for him to emerge from the hotel's bathroom. They had in truth booked only one room by mistake, but it had two double beds. Though as Shego sat on one, wearing the cheap pajamas they had bought just before going to the hotel, she realized that being alone with her thoughts wasn't the only problem she was having. Just being away from him at all was difficult. They hadn't even been back to civilization for a full day, and she already missed the intimacy with him.

Was she really falling for him, or was it just the circumstances?

She pushed the annoying thought away as finally the bathroom door opened to a crack. The shower had switched off several minutes earlier and she wondered what was taking him so long. Drakken's face nervously poked through the door, and after he noted Shego's location sitting cross-legged on the bed, he sighed in relief and left the bathroom, immediately heading for the other bed. Shego blinked in surprise at his clean-shaven face. She had gotten used to the beard.

His damp hair hung loose past his shoulders as he threw the blankets back and got into his bed with a heavy sigh. Shego took note of how the thin, gray pajamas hung on his frame due to weight loss. She looked about the same, since they had purchased the sizes they were used to wearing and not the sizes they now were.

Her heart beat nervously as she stood up and moved to climb into the other side of his bed as she had planned almost from the time they entered the room. He leaned up on his elbow in alarm.

"Shego!" he protested almost frantically.

"I like sleeping with you," she said simply by way of explanation.

"But this...this isn't...we shouldn't..." he stammered.

"It was okay in the boat. And on the island. Why not here?" she asked, looking at him a bit sadly as she settled in, keeping a good two feet between them in the bed to hopefully settle his nerves.

He blinked at her anxiously as he tried to read her face. It was what had been happening since they were brought to the mainland. She knew he was still struggling with the possibility of her potentially loving him, or if it would all be for nothing. And she had also brought the freedom of selfishness with them off of the island through the passionate kiss they had shared on the boat. She knew he was also fighting his own urges to be near to her as his own standards of propriety returned now that they were back among people.

She had draped her damp hair back as she lay on her side, peering up at him. He finally set his head on his pillow as he watched her nervously. She adjusted the blankets around her shoulders and then reached across the gap for his hand, poking her fingers up above the blanket so he could see them. He blinked at her again, and then he reached up to turn off the lamp that was built into the wall above the headboard. In the darkness, she felt his clammy hand rest atop hers a moment later.

She closed her eyes and let silence settle over them. She truthfully just wanted to sleep, and get a well-rested start to the next day... But she could sense Drakken's tension as he barely breathed across from her. He hadn't relaxed for a moment, really since the previous night when she had tried to take things too far too soon.

"Dr. D..." she said with a tired sigh.

His hand left hers. She frowned and felt closer to him until her hand touched his shirt front. He startled slightly and pulled away from her touch. She sighed and moved her hand back to the space between them.

"If you really do love me...then you have to relax and just let things happen."

"...What?" he asked shrilly.

"There's never any certainty in relationships. It's like...it's like going out on the ocean."

She grimaced at the analogy she had thought of, but it really was perfect... She hoped he would see it.

"When you decide to go out, you take the risk that nothing bad is going to happen. You assume trust in your boat, and the weather, and whoever you're with, but you still know that something could go horribly wrong. Because it's the ocean. It's the same when you decide to...try a relationship."

A heavy silence fell after she finished, and she listened to Drakken's too-quick breaths in the dark. But she could tell he was less tense. Maybe...

He took a short breath before speaking. "Shouldn't go out on the sea..." he muttered.

Her heart sank. But she knew what she had to live for, now. She wasn't about to give up. She felt a nervous electricity race over her as she took a deep breath and prepared to speak into the analogy. Everything he had done while they'd been lost had made her brave... She hoped he hadn't lost his courage after all that had happened.

"I'm...I'm going. I'm risking these waves," she spoke steadily. "You brought me out here... Please...stay with me."

Another silence fell. She forced herself to relax, as she had said her piece. She was willing to try, but she couldn't force him. She'd already seen the horrible results of that. It really was...his ship to sail, now.

She heard him take a breath in the dark and then let it out slowly and shakily. She thought she may have to give up for the day, and try again in the morning. But then she felt his hand come to rest atop hers in the center of the bed.

She turned her hand up to bring their palms together. And a moment later, he firmly entwined his fingers with hers.

\---  
fin.


End file.
